Superwomen of Eva 2: The Ultimate Rush
by Mike313
Summary: Mari Illustrious Makinami felt that piloting Eva was a pretty exciting gig. However, she had no idea that a freak accident would open the door to another extraordinary role that was even more of a rush.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Prologue:** The Accident

All in all, the entry plug was a pretty peaceful place during a sync test. It was dim, and though one could easily hear the muffled humming of machinery from within it, it could still accurately be described as quiet. It smelled like blood, but she was so used to the odor that she'd actually come to like it. So, all in all, the plug could be a very tranquil place.

It bored the hell out of Mari Illustrious Makinami.

"Are we finished yet?" she asked, switching on her radio.

"Almost, Mari," the voice of one of the technicians answered in a placating tone. "Just keep concentrating for ten more minutes."

"Any chance of running a few combat sims after we're done with this?" Mari asked hopefully.

"Nice try, Missy," responded an amused voice Mari knew very well, "but I have to get you to school as soon as this test is over. Now get back to it."

"Yes, ma'am," Mari replied, holding back a sigh.

* * *

"Looks like our girl's as antsy as ever," Vice Commander Vreeland observed wryly as he and several other members of the local NERV branch observed the sync test from the control room.

"With all due respect, sir, if you were regularly thrown into a big metal box and told to think at it for two hours, wouldn't _you_ get bored?"

The portly old officer turned and smirked at the slender woman who stood behind him. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, and if not for the somewhat impish smile she wore, she would have looked the very portrait of professionalism in her NERV uniform and with her blond hair up in a tight bun.

"Point taken, Lieutenant Quinn," he replied. "Why do we make her take these tests so frequently, anyway? Her ratio hasn't fluctuated more than two points up or down from her usual score for years now."

"The constant sync tests are necessary to maintain this level, sir," replied Dr. Hutchison, the base's head scientist.

Most people thought that the thin, perpetually lab coat wearing man looked worried all the time, and he certainly wasn't proving them wrong that day as he stared down at the read outs, chewing on his bottom lip.

"What is it now, Hutch?" Vreeland asked finally.

"Nothing new, sir," Hutchinson replied, not even bothering to look up from his console. "The way Makinami syncs has always been odd."

"We've been over this before, Hutch," Vreeland said with a patience Quinn knew she didn't possess.

Hutchinson had always been nervous about the quirks of Mari's links to her EVA, practically from the first time they'd ever put her into the plug. The riddle of it was like an old bone the scientist chewed on constantly whenever he didn't have any pressing duties to worry about, and nobody could ever quite say whether he did it out of concern for Mari, academic curiosity, or some sense of self-preservation.

"I know, sir," Hutchinson replied, "but it's so strange the way she syncs so much more…deeply than any of the other pilots, and yet doesn't have a higher ratio to show for it."

"I've told you how Mari explained it," Quinn spoke up. "After that strange experiment years ago where we crammed her and Soryu into the same plug, Mari told me that the Second Child just controls the EVA, while she embraces its nature."

Dr. Hutchinson didn't look at all comforted by that reminder, but given the reports they'd heard of some of the other Evangelions displaying fits of berserker rage in the past, it was hard to fault him.

"I still think she could be inviting mental contamination by doing it that way," Hutchinson said. "In fact, it's probably already started. You've all seen the recordings of Mari's combat sims."

Everyone in the room went a little pale at the reminder. Vreeland was still meaning to ask the base's computer people why they'd felt the need to program such realistic looking virtual blood and organs for the simulated Angel.

"That's just the way Mari is," Quinn replied, reluctantly allowing herself to be drawn into this old argument. "She enjoys her job, and I wouldn't have her any other way, especially since it makes me feel a lot less guilty about what we're making her do."

"But she's undergoing physical changes because of her constant connection to EVA, unlike all the other pilots," Hutchinson argued.

"So her sense of smell has gotten sharper. It hardly means that she's on the verge of sprouting tentacles and a second head," Quinn argued, the volume of her voice rising.

"Enough, you two," Vreeland spoke up. "Neither of you is going to change the status quo. Hutch, Commander Wells says you're still welcome to keep trying to find a way to tweak Unit Five so its connection with Mari is more normal. Until then, we proceed as usual, and please, no more of this argument."

"Yes, sir," the scientist and the lieutenant replied, just as a small chime went off.

"Mari, you're done," Quinn said, pushing a button to switch on one of the microphones in the control room. "Get changed and I'll take you to school."

* * *

A few minutes later, Lieutenant Quinn met Mari outside the women's locker room. The EVA pilot had changed out of her plug suit and was now wearing a plaid skirt, white button up shirt, and a blue tie. It was the uniform of the private school Mari went to.

NERV owned that private school. It made it a hell of a lot easier to staff the place with their bodyguards.

"Hey, Jessie," Mari greeted her guardian. "How'd I do?"

"About the same as always," Jessie Quinn replied. "Ready to go?"

"I was born ready," Mari replied cheerfully. "Let's blow this popsicle stand!"

Grinning, the two ladies quickly made their way out of the base. The hot Kansas sun began to beat down on them the moment they were outside, but they both ignored it, used to the heat. In minutes, they'd reached Jessie's sensible but rather unsexy compact car.

"Hutchinson was going off again," Jessie mentioned as she drove past a checkpoint and off the base proper.

"Again?" Mari winced.

"Yeah, but the Vice Commander told him to drop it," Jessie replied. "I don't think you'll have to worry about him trying to ambush you for a lecture again."

Not that Mari _let_ the man lecture her about how to do a job only a handful of people—teenagers all, and she among them—truly understood, but Jessie could understand that Hutchinson could still be a nuisance at times. The frequent experiments the scientist made Mari endure in the name of normalizing her link with EVA were bad enough without him trying to preach to her about the potential dangers of her way of piloting.

"Good," Mari replied, pressing the button to lower her window and allowing a blast of wind into the car.

Jessie turned onto the main road that linked the NERV base to the nearest major city, which she and Mari called home. Both of them knew they had a drive of fifty miles over flat, mostly empty land ahead of them. Indeed, the only structure of any note between the base and the city was Iron Heights prison, and that wasn't exactly pleasing to the eye. Also, as the road really only served the people who went to the base, there weren't even many other cars to look at.

Mari had often complained of boredom during these drives when she was younger, but she'd learned what the dull trips were good for. "May I?" she asked.

Jessie smirked. "Of course."

With a grin, Mari turned on the radio, set it to an all rock and roll station, then cranked the volume up as high as it would go, sending the music blaring out over the empty land.

* * *

They didn't turn down the radio until they were approaching civilization, which for some reason seemed to come almost all at once where they were. The transition from total emptiness to bustling city was abrupt; with the exception of West Key, there really wasn't a lot in the way of suburbs in the area.

"Welcome to Keystone City!" a familiar sign blared, just as they entered the urban center and encountered traffic.

Fortunately, Jessie had grown up in Keystone, and she was as familiar with the roads as anyone. Deftly navigating around the jams, she pulled up to the Johnson Memorial Private School for Bright Youths just in time for Mari to make second period.

"See you later, Jessie," Mari waved as she rushed into the intimidating stone structure where she went to school.

The bespectacled girl raced up to the building's second floor, soon finding the classroom she was supposed to be in. Mari walked inside, and her nose was immediately confronted by a myriad smells. It was a science classroom, and Mari felt fairly certain that someone had been dissecting something in there fairly recently.

"Miss Makinami, glad you could join us, late as usual or not," the science teacher commented as she walked in.

"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Peterson," Mari said, not sounding apologetic at all. "Here's my note."

The middle aged man didn't even bother to look at it. This was routine, and NERV _did_ own the school, after all. "Just take your seat," he said.

Nodding, Mari quickly sat down next to Denise Myles. The girl was an unremarkable looking brunette who usually smelled faintly of chamomile, one of the smartest people the EVA pilot knew, and the only person at Johnson's that Mari called a friend.

The whole school reeked of old money, and most of the students were no exception; the vast bulk of them weren't Keystone denizens, but from West Key, where the executives who owned all the factories in the city lived. Mari, who'd been an orphan since before she could remember and then "adopted" by the military when she'd been selected to pilot EVA, had always gotten along better with Keystone's blue collars than West Key's blue bloods. And truth be told, she was just fine with that.

Denise, however, wasn't rich; she'd gotten into the school on brains alone, winning some sort of scholarship. She and Mari had hit it off from day one.

"What's up?" Denise whispered as Mari sat down.

"Nothing exciting," Mari replied in kind. "Just the usual boring test. Still better than history class, though."

"I like history," Denise said mildly. "It's my favorite subject after science."

"And some people say I'm strange," Mari smirked. "Seriously, though, sometimes I wonder if NERV will ever ship me out. The Angels have already started coming."

"Mm," Denise made a little thoughtful noise. "Not that I'm eager to get rid of you or anything, but why are you still here instead of in Japan already?"

"Politics, red tape, you know, the bane of my existence," Mari replied, shaking her head. "I'll miss the whole war if I stay here much longer."

The conversation was interrupted as the teacher loudly cleared his throat. "Do you two have something to share with the rest of the class?"

"No, Mr. Peterson," the two girls said in unison.

"Very well, then," the teacher said. "Let's continue."

* * *

Later that day, Mari and Denise were visiting a convenience store, something that had become an old after school ritual for the two of them. The two girls each bought a soda, then began to trek toward a nearby bus stop.

"So you'll help me study for next week's history test, right?" Mari asked.

"Yeah, I guess so," Denise agreed. "I never did really get why you struggle so much in that subject, though. You're fine at math and science, you speak Japanese more fluently than the guy who's supposed to be teaching us, and you're even okay in lit class."

Mari shrugged. "History bores me. I never really saw the point of wasting the present worrying about the past."

"Those who do not study the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them," Denise quoted.

"Like we don't do that anyway," Mari replied.

"Are you that cynical, or do you just want to hang onto your justification for never paying attention in history class?" Denise asked.

Mari just shrugged in response and took a drink of her soda.

Denise sighed slightly. "Well, considering that Traci would probably still be harassing me if you hadn't stepped in and gone all crazy ninja soldier girl on her, I guess it's only fair," she said. "We'll meet at my place the night before the test, okay?"

* * *

A few days later found Mari back at the NERV base, getting ready to take yet another sync test. She wasn't too happy about it, considering that she wasn't supposed to have to endure another very dull two hours until next week. Unfortunately, Hutchinson had once again come up with something that he believed would regulate her link with EVA, and the scientist was not to be denied.

"So, what's he trying this time?" Mari asked as she and Jessie walked to the cage together. "Modified helmet? Different wavelengths? Voodoo?"

Jessie smirked at the last one. "I think his latest idea involves mixing some chemicals in with the LCL."

Mari wrinkled her nose at the thought but consoled herself with the knowledge that this attempt would doubtlessly fail as all the others before it had.

Sensing her ward's displeasure, Jessie smiled and said, "Since we're doing this test after school instead of before it, I think I can convince them to let you get in a combat sim or two after the sync test."

"Sweet," Mari said with a grin as they arrived at the entry plug. "Well, guess I'll see you in a few hours, Jessie."

"Right, see ya," Jessie replied as she began to head toward the control room.

Mari wasted no time climbing into the entry plug. Once inside, she began to quickly attach the various cables she found within to her plug suit. Unit Five, a "provisional" EVA, had a lot more in the way of purely mechanical parts than the other Evangelions did, and thus required a different control scheme. Once she was finished with the cables, she donned the bulky helmet that also went with Unit Five and lay back in her command chair to wait until the people in the control room were all ready.

While she was waiting, Mari began to sing to relieve her boredom while she still could. "One step at a time, there's no need to rush, it's like learning to fly, or falling in love…"

Suddenly, her radio crackled to life. "You know we can all hear it you when you do that, right?" Jessie's voice came into her plug.

"Yeah. So?" Mari asked nonchalantly.

"Never mind," Jessie replied. "We're about to start the test. Entry plug should be filling up right about now."

Sure enough, LCL rapidly began to pour into the plug a moment later, quickly rising above her head. With practiced ease, Mari inhaled the liquid…then almost gagged at the acerbic, noxious smell and flavor it had thanks to Hutchinson's chemical cocktail.

_On the off chance that this works, I'm making them add some cherry flavoring or something,_ Mari decided immediately.

"Feel anything different, Pilot Makinami?" Hutchinson asked.

"Other than the urge to throw up? Nope," Mari replied. "Can we get on with this test?"

"Of course," Hutchinson replied. "Initiating connections."

Several lights within the entry plug came on, illuminating it with a dull orange glow that Mari didn't really see. Her helmet's visor swirled with a kaleidoscope of colors, then settled on the rather uninteresting view of the cage that Unit Five was currently situated within.

As all this went on, the pilot started to feel the familiar tug on her mind as she and Evangelion's bestial intelligence began to move in concert. She could feel it breathing in time with her, and her body tingled slightly as the mental link fully established itself.

"Feels the same as ever," she reported, relieved that this attempt of Hutchinson's looked like it was on its way to join all the others in the scrap heap.

"Well, we'll continue the test," Hutchinson, refusing to give up so easily, "see if there's any effect after two hours."

Nodding, Mari resigned herself to 120 minutes of boredom in the smelly LCL. Her eyelids began to droop after about ten of those minutes, and she was just about to close her eyes entirely when the alarms started blaring.

"What's going on?!" she demanded as her visor's usual readouts were replaced by a large 'WARNING!' message and the plug filled with red light.

"Something's gone wrong with the electrical systems!" Jessie's voice came in, and Mari could hear a lot of frantic sounding people shouting the background. "Mari, get out of there!"

"Right!" she replied.

Wasting no time, reached out and grabbed hold of a large lever that sat to the side of her command chair. With a grunt of effort, she pulled it upwards.

There was a loud hissing sound from just beneath the plug, and a great jolt went through the metal container. However, it didn't move at all.

The words "EJECTION SYSTEM MALFUNCTION" were displayed before Mari's eyes in big, block letters.

"Damn! Who _designed_ this thing?" Mari demanded of no one in particular.

* * *

Inside the control room, everyone who wasn't currently occupied with frantically trying to keep the malfunction from turning into a major disaster turned, as one, to stare at Dr. Hutchinson.

"Don't look at me!" the scientist sputtered. "I didn't design the ejection system!"

"Never mind that!" barked the Vice Commander. "What the hell caused this, anyway?"

"Looks like there was some damage done recently to the surge protectors and breakers inside EVA that regulate the power flow from the umbilical cable," one of the technicians reported.

"If there's a power surge now, the plug will be electrified," added another tech.

"Doctor, weren't the components you modified during your last experiment near the EVA's power regulation systems?" Jessie asked, giving Hutchinson a glare that promised _great_ suffering if Mari was hurt.

The scientist just tugged nervously on his collar in response, suddenly finding it much too warm inside the control room.

"Disconnect the power cable!" Vreeland commanded.

"No!" Hutchinson yelled. "There's always a surge right when the EVA switches from external to internal power!"

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Jessie demanded. "It'll take several minutes to deactivate the EVA. By then..."

"Drain the LCL," Hutchinson replied. "The plug suit is non-conductive, so unless Mari starts licking the walls or something, she should be fine."

"Do it," Vreeland ordered one of the technicians.

"Draining LCL," the tech replied. "But sir, I can't execute an emergency discharge with the plug still inside the EVA."

"That should be fine," Hutchinson said. "Even at the normal rate, draining the plug doesn't take long. We only need our luck to hold out for a few more—"

He was cut off as a piercing scream of agony suddenly erupted out of the control room's speakers. Everyone looked up at the screen that displayed the inside of the plug, and just before the energy surge fried the camera, they were able to witness Mari writhing about crazily as electricity was pumped into her body through the LCL in the still mostly full plug. Then the image became filled with static and winked out entirely.

"…seconds," Hutchinson finished in a soft, horrified tone.

* * *

"Oh, my head," Mari groaned several hours later, pressing an ice pack to the side of her skull as she and Jessie walked through the base's parking lot.

Once NERV had finally managed to shut down Unit Five, they had frantically extracted Mari's entry plug and gotten her out, finding her unconscious but alive. The girl had then been taken down to the infirmary and put through every test the doctors could throw at her. Amazingly enough, the EVA pilot had proved to be entirely unharmed by the ordeal.

_So long as you don't count this headache,_ she thought, willing the jackhammers inside her head to stop pounding away, to utterly no effect. She hadn't felt this bad since the time she and Denise had managed to obtain quite a bit of beer and had decided to see just what all the fuss about alcohol was about.

The doctors had wanted to keep her at the infirmary overnight for observation, but Mari had just wanted to go home, where everything didn't smell of disinfectants, and Jessie had agreed.

"Considering what happened, you should just be grateful that you're not dead," her guardian pointed out.

"If I was dead, at least I wouldn't be feeling this," Mari replied, screwing her eyes shut as they arrived at Jessie's car.

Muttering something under her breath, Jessie unlocked the vehicle, then placed the bouquet of flowers she'd been carrying into the back seat. Dr. Hutchinson had somehow gotten them while Mari was being put through the battery of tests in the infirmary, hoping to stave off the lieutenant's rage.

_Fat chance of that,_ Jessie thought as she and Mari climbed into the car. As soon as she wasn't worrying about her ailing charge, Hutchinson was going to get an earful.

"Want some music?" Jessie asked as they pulled away from the base.

"God, no," Mari replied immediately, leaning back into her chair and closing her eyes.

* * *

By the time they were approaching Keystone, the pounding in Mari's head had diminished significantly, and she was feeling more like her usual self. It had also started to rain in a slow but steady downpour that promised to go on for hours and leave the whole city sodden.

"Feeling better?" Jessie asked.

"Much," Mari replied. "I still want to hit the sack as soon we get back home, though."

"Can't say I blame you," Jessie replied, taking a turn.

The pilot's stomach suddenly let out a loud growl.

"Well, maybe I'll get something to eat before I go to bed," she added.

"How can you be hungry after almost being electrocuted?" Jessie asked.

Mari never did get the chance to answer that question, because all hell broke out immediately after her guardian posed the question.

They were coming to an intersection, and their light had just turned green. The cars in front of them began to move forward. The driver of one of the cars that now had a red light pressed down on the brake…but his car didn't stop moving. Instead, it kept moving forward, hydroplaning across a deep puddle that had formed in the rainstorm.

Horns blared. Feet slammed down on brake pedals. People screamed.

And all of it was for naught. A car crashed into the vehicle that had involuntarily run the right light, causing metal to crumple and glass to shatter. The cars behind it began to crash into _them_, unable to stop in time on the wet streets. Mari had just enough time to look at Jessie—just enough time to see her guardian gritting her teeth and standing on the break—before they, too, became part of the mass traffic accident.

Jessie's sensible, unsexy little car was sent hurtling through the air. She and Mari both screamed, and to the EVA pilot, time seemed to slow down as the accident unfolded, the seconds stretching into brief, excruciating infinities. Mari instinctively closed her eyes and raised her arms to shield her head, just as the front of Jessie's car was about to slam into another vehicle.

Then…nothing happened.

Slowly, fearful of what she might see, she lowered her arms and opened her eyes. Her jaw dropped as she saw the scene before her.

Time had stopped.

None of the cars, which had been crashing into one another a second ago, were moving at all. That included Jessie's car, which hung suspended in midair. Next to her, Jessie was as still as a statue. The world had fallen totally silent. Even the rain drops hung suspended in the air.

"What the hell?" Mari breathed.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Mari Illustrious Makinami has joined the brawl!

…sorry, couldn't resist making the reference.

Anyway, I was hesitant about starting Mari's story for a while now, mostly because I was having trouble finding out what this character was like. Having found out more about Rebuild 2.0, however, I finally got around to it. I've actually got just about the whole fic planned out, and I'm very much looking forward to writing it.

Hopefully, I've thrown in enough clues that fans of the appropriate comic will know exactly whose powers Mari has, while it won't be glaringly obvious to others.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

* * *

Omake

Jessie IS Genre Savvy

"That should be fine," Hutchinson said. "Even at the normal rate, draining the plug doesn't take long. We only need our luck to hold out for a few more—"

He was cut off as a piercing scream of agony suddenly erupted out of the control room's speakers. Everyone looked up at the screen that displayed the inside of the plug, and just before the energy surge fried the camera, they were able to witness Mari writhing about crazily as electricity was pumped into her body through the LCL in the still mostly full plug. Then the image became filled with static and winked out entirely.

"…seconds," Hutchinson finished in a soft, horrified tone.

* * *

"Hurry it up! Move it with that power saw!" the cage leader screamed as a technician advanced toward Unit Five with a very large power tool.

Switching it on, he began to cut a large hole into Mari's plug, creating a way to get her out. Once he was done, another man dove into the LCL and pulled out the unconscious EVA pilot.

"She's breathing!" he announced. "She's alive!"

"Well of _course_ she's alive!" Jessie said. "She's the _main character_. She's not going to bite it in the prologue!"

Almost as one, everybody present turned to stare strangely at the lieutenant, who quickly began to sweat under the gaze of all those eyes.

"Uh, I mean, _thank goodness she's all right!_" Jessie exclaimed.


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter One: **Family History

The world had frozen around Mari Illustrious Makinami.

Halfway through a potentially lethal car accident, it was like God had pressed 'pause' on all of creation except her, and the bespectacled girl was left gaping at the raindrops outside, which had stopped dead in their descent toward the ground.

Most people would have just kept on gaping until the bizarre phenomenon came to an end and the temporarily halted car crash brought an end to them.

Fortunately, Mari wasn't most people, but a trained soldier, and one who dealt with one of the most irregular (to put it mildly) responsibilities that the military had to shoulder, at that. She recovered from her shock after only a few seconds and opened the car door.

Still fascinated by the frozen world, Mari reached out and tentatively touched one of the motionless raindrops outside. It turned to steam with a loud hiss the moment she made contact with it, and the EVA pilot instantly pulled her hand back, startled.

"What in the world…?" she muttered to herself, and then she shook her head.

Right now, it didn't matter why this was happening, or even what _this_ was exactly. All that mattered was the opportunity it was presenting her with.

Turning to look at Jessie, Mari quickly undid her guardian's seatbelt. Jessie was as totally frozen in time as everyone and everything else around the pilot of Unit Five, but Mari would be damned if she got herself to safety without taking her guardian with her.

"Let's go, Jessie," Mari said as she grabbed hold of the lieutenant and began to pull her out of the vehicle.

It was no easy job for the pilot. Although her training had made her far stronger than the average fourteen-year-old girl, Mari was still a teenager trying to move a full grown woman, and one who felt very much like dead weight at the moment, too.

"_Geeze_, Jessie," Mari grunted with the effort as she half-carried, half-dragged the lieutenant out of the car, and then a safe distance away from the car accident in progress, "maybe you should _lay off_ those donuts in the _morning_!"

Time still hadn't resumed its normal flow by the time Mari had set Jessie down on the sidewalk. The EVA pilot looked at all the other cars that were about to crash into another vehicle, or were in the process of doing so, and quickly reached a decision.

The girl ran back toward the commencing pileup, leaving a trail of steam behind her as every raindrop she touched was instantly vaporized. Moving as quickly as she could, she started pulling people out of the cars and getting them away from the accident.

It was a difficult task, made all the worse by the knowledge that, for all she knew, time could start ticking at its normal rate again at any moment. She didn't even try moving some of the bigger guys she encountered, unless it was obvious that they were about to meet their maker, focusing her efforts on the smaller women and children.

After a few minutes of quick, desperate labor, Mari had gotten almost a dozen people out of the crash. Stopping on the sidewalk to rest for a minute, she braced her hands on her knees and took several deep, panting breaths.

She was about to go back for more people when she spied movement out of the corner of her eye. Immediately straightening, she looked up to see that the world was starting to move again—slowly. It was like God had switched the universe from pause to slow motion.

Then time abruptly resumed its normal speed, and the car accident was at last allowed to unfold. The noise of metal crumpling, glass shattering, and people screaming was a terrific shock to Mari's ears after the long period of profound silence, and the tired girl was practically knocked onto her back by the sudden explosion of noise.

As it was, Mari allowed herself to sit down heavily on the sidewalk next to Jessie. The lieutenant looked about as dazed and confused as the EVA pilot felt.

"Mari?" she asked, her voice vague. "How… how did we get here all of a sudden? What the hell happened?"

"I… I don't know," Mari answered, which, if not perfectly honest, certainly wasn't a complete lie, either.

Jessie didn't push the issue, instead looking out at the cluster of smashed cars in the street with wide, shell-shocked eyes.

Mari, for her part, didn't want to look at the scene of the accident that they, by all rights, should have been a part of. She looked down at her hands, and then blinked in surprise.

Little arcs of electricity seemed to be crawling up and down her fingers. They disappeared as she watched, but her fingers tingled for a long time afterwards.

* * *

The emergency vehicles started pulling up only a couple of minutes after the spectacular pileup occurred. Mari and Jessie had to endure being poked and prodded by the EMTs, as well as being questioned by the police.

The mystery of how about a dozen people had seemed to vanish from their cars and then reappear safe and sound on the sidewalk nearby loomed large, but Mari played dumb about the matter. The police didn't dare question her too forcefully. NERV didn't command the same level of fear and respect in America that it did in Japan, but officers of the law, especially those in Keystone, still knew to tread carefully when an EVA pilot was involved.

And perhaps a few of the policemen just didn't want to question a miracle; because while there had been several injuries, no one had been killed, as bad as the accident had been. Keystone wasn't used to seeing that kind of providence. Not any more.

Eventually, Jessie and Mari were allowed to return home, much to their relief. Their apartment was only a couple of blocks away, and since they were already soaked to the skin anyway, the two of them trudged home rather than going through the trouble of getting a taxi.

"What a day, huh?" Jessie said as they plodded up the stairs of their apartment building, leaving wet footprints behind them.

"Tell me about it," Mari agreed. "I never expected to almost die so many times in a day without Angels."

Jessie just grunted in reply to this, finding Mari's flippancy toward the subject of her own demise a little disturbing. The two of them arrived at the door to their apartment, and Jessie produced the key. She opened the door, the two of them stepped inside, and—

"Dibs on the shower!" Mari exclaimed.

"Dibs on the… damn it!" Jessie said a half second later.

Laughing, Mari quickly grabbed a towel and then rushed into the bathroom, leaving a grumbling Jessie behind her. Gratefully shedding her sodden clothes and then her glasses, the pilot turned the hot water knob as far as it would go.

Before she could even touch the other knob, she heard Jessie pounding on the door.

"Don't you dare use up all the hot water!" her guardian shouted.

"Got it," Mari called back.

Quickly pulling her two ponytails out, Mari stepped into the shower and released a sigh of contentment as the hot water cascaded over her skin and began to work the chill out of her body. It was heavenly, and Mari intended to indulge in a good long soak; the apartment building had a very big hot water heater.

She would have, too, had her own body not driven her out.

A couple of minutes after she had stepped into the shower, her stomach released a growl that was so loud she was afraid Jessie would hear it. The sound made her realize that she was hungry, and her appetite only continued to grow with every second that passed by. Though when it began, Mari felt like an early midnight snack could easily banish the hunger pangs, within a few minutes, she was ravenous.

Suddenly, she couldn't get out of the shower fast enough; she was so hungry that she felt sick and shaky. Mari barely took the time to give her hair and body a cursory scrub before she shut the water off and got out, wrapping a towel around herself and then another around her hair.

Jessie blinked at her in surprise as she exited the bathroom.

"You said you wanted me to save you some hot water," Mari said with a grin.

Jessie gave Mari a suspicious look that clearly said "I'm watching you", then grabbed the towel she'd gotten for herself and vanished into the still steamy bathroom.

The second she had closed the door, Mari rushed over to the fridge and quickly pulled two slices of leftover pizza from the freezer. Then after thinking it over a moment, she grabbed a third. Removing the tin foil the food had been wrapped in, Mari set them on a plate and popped it into the microwave.

Yet she found she couldn't wait for the pizza to finish heating up. Her stomach just didn't have the patience for it, and she was soon searching frantically elsewhere for food.

Mari threw open a cabinet and pulled out a large bag of potato chips. Ripping a bag open, she started to stuff her face as quickly as she could. Her eyes rolled back into her head as she groaned softly with rapture. Her hunger made the crunchy, salty snack taste like the food of the gods.

Distantly, she thought that it was a good thing she hadn't come across a bag of cheese-flavored snacks; her face and hands would probably have been covered with orange powder if that was the case.

The microwave beeped just as she had emptied out the potato chip bag. Throwing the bag away, Mari rushed to grab her pizza. The slices were hot enough to burn her tongue, but she barely let that slow her down. They tasted almost as good as the chips had.

The chips and the three slices of pizza took the edge off her hunger, but they didn't stop her from heating up three more slices.

Jessie emerged from the bathroom before Mari had quite finished with these, now eating at a more reasonable pace. Her guardian looked a little amazed at the sight.

"You couldn't even wait until you'd gotten dressed to make a pig of yourself?" she asked with a bluntness borne of surprise.

Mari looked down at herself and noted with surprise that she indeed wasn't dressed. She had totally forgotten that she was still clad in only a towel, which was now flecked with crumbs and dotted with tomato sauce and pizza grease.

"I was hungry," she said with a shrug.

"Only you could have an appetite after the day you endured," Jessie said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "How do you feel, by the way?"

"Tired," Mari answered truthfully.

"I'm not surprised," Jessie said. "Go to bed. I'll clean up after your meal."

"Thanks," Mari said with a yawn.

The pilot retreated to her room, where she exchanged her towel for a long T-shirt and panties. Then she removed her glasses and set them down on her bedside table. It was a perfectly ordinary end to what was easily the weirdest day she'd ever experienced, but Mari had a feeling that the strangeness wasn't over yet, not by a long shot.

However, it had never been in her nature to brood, and even if it had been, Mari was just too tired from the events of the day to stay awake and worry. She was asleep the moment her head touched her pillow.

* * *

"I'm telling you, Denise, what happened yesterday was the weirdest thing ever," Mari told her friend the next day as they ate lunch in their school's cafeteria.

Denise, who was currently looking over her history notes, didn't even bother to look up at the EVA pilot. "Mari, you control a giant cyborg thing that was created to save us all from bad Godzilla knockoffs," she said. "What day in your life doesn't involve the weirdest thing ever?"

"Denise, Jessie and I were involved in that crash at 78th and East," Mari said.

_That_ got her friend's full and undivided attention. News of the huge pile-up—and the way several people who should've been in the middle of it had abruptly found themselves on the sidelines—had already spread through the city.

"You _what!?_" Denise hissed.

"I was there," Mari reiterated. "But something weird happened, and I was able to get out of it without a scratch. And before that there was this… accident at the base. I got zapped while I was in my EVA, and now something's up with me. Something _seriously_ strange."

For the first time, Denise noticed just how many empty plates were sitting on Mari's plastic cafeteria tray and her eyebrows went up.

Now, Denise knew that her bespectacled friend could really put it away; in fact, Denise often complained that she'd be a total blimp if she ate like the EVA pilot. However, it looked like Mari had eaten two or three times as much as she usually did at lunch.

"Mari," she said, concern seeping into her voice, "if you think there could be something wrong with you, then you should tell Jessie. I'm sure NERV would drop everything to give you the once over and figure it out."

"I'm not getting the brass at the base freaked out," Mari said, shaking her head emphatically. "I've been doing boring sync tests for way too long to get pulled from EVA just before I get to the really fun part of my job. Besides, I didn't say I felt like there was something _wrong_ with me, just that there was something _weird_."

Denise rubbed her forehead and screwed her eyes shut. "How much time is left in lunch period?"

Mari gazed past her friend at the clock on the wall behind her. "About twenty minutes," she answered.

"Think you can tell me everything that happened yesterday in that time?" Denise asked.

"Sure," he pilot said.

She proceeded to explain in quick, hushed tones, the events of the previous day, starting with the botched sync test and ending with the ravenous hunger that had assailed her after the car accident. By the time she was done, Denise's eyes had widened hugely.

"My god," the other girl breathed. "Could it be…?"

"What?" Mari demanded.

Denise's eyes snapped back up toward Mari's. "It's probably nothing," she said. "I have to check something. I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

Mari was about to argue, but the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period, and Denise, quite aware of how much force of personality the pilot wielded, took the opportunity to beat a hasty retreat.

* * *

Denise went straight home as soon as school let out, skipping their usual trip to the convenience store for the first time in seemingly forever, thus putting paid to any notion that she didn't think something very important had happened to Mari (or, as the pilot grumbled to herself as she headed home "Probably nothing, my _ass_.").

However, she resisted the urge to go over to Denise's place and force the truth out of her, mostly because her friend had never acted this way before. Indeed, Denise was usually the polar opposite of flaky, so Mari decided to let her be weird, just this once.

In the meantime, life proceeded as usual for the pilot. She continued to eat far more food than she usually did, but that all-consuming hunger from after the car accident didn't return.

In any event, the EVA pilot didn't have to wait very long to hear back from her friend. The next day was Saturday, and Mari received a call from Denise that afternoon. The brainy girl wanted Mari to come over, and the pilot had no difficulty detecting the urgency—and excitement?—in her friend's voice.

Curious as hell, Mari quickly agreed, told Jessie she was going out, and made her way to the apartment Denise called home. After saying a quick hello to Denise's parents, Mari was ushered into her friend's room.

"Okay, what the hell is going on?" the bespectacled girl asked without preamble as soon as the two of them were alone.

"Well, I've done a little research, and while I'm not one-hundred percent sure yet…" Denise paused dramatically. "I think that accident at the NERV base might have given you the same powers as the Flash."

Mari blinked, then frowned. "The Flash? Who's the Flash?"

Denise's jaw dropped as an expression of the purest shock etched itself onto her face. She couldn't have looked more appalled if Mari had just asked who the president was.

She probably couldn't have looked more appalled if Mari had just asked _what_ the president was.

"'Who's the Flash'? _'Who's the Flash'?_" Denise sputtered. "You spent most of your life in Keystone. How could you not know who the Flash is?!"

Mari just shrugged.

"You've _never_ heard of the Flash?" Denise asked again.

Mari shook her head, sending her ponytails swinging back and forth.

"The Scarlet Speedster?"

"No."

"The Crimson Comet?"

"Nope."

"The Monarch of Motion?"

"Nuh-uh."

"The Sultan of Speed?"

"Nah."

"The Vizier of Velocity?"

Mari frowned. "The Vizier of Velocity?"

"Okay, I just made that one up," Denise confessed. "But still! _How_ could you have _never_ heard of the Flash?!"

"I don't know," Mari said, getting tired of her friend's naked shock. "I just haven't, okay?"

Denise stared wordlessly at the EVA pilot for a long moment.

"That's it," she said abruptly, clamping a hand down on Mari's wrist. "You're coming to the museum with me, right now."

"No way! I'm not going to any boring museum!" Mari protested.

She'd known for a long time that Denise's uncle was a museum curator, and Denise had tried more than once to get Mari to go, but the EVA pilot's dislike of history had always kept her away from the place.

"Trust me, this time, you won't be bored," Denise said with an unusual gleam in her eyes, and for once, Mari was powerless to do anything but get dragged along by her friend.

The two of them hopped a bus, and after a short ride they got off in front of a large building that was still impressive despite its obviously aging exterior. Mari's eyebrows went up as she looked at the larger than life statue of a man wearing some kind of weird, apparently one piece costume that included a mask which covered most of his head. There was a lightning bolt emblem on his chest, and Mari realized that it was identical to the one which sat above the museum's main doors.

"Why is that guy wearing hood ornaments over his ears?" Mari quipped.

"For your information, they're called 'wing fins'," Denise said indignantly. "That's Barry Allen, the second man to be known as the Flash. He is… was the fastest man alive."

"You mean _two_ people wore that getup?" Mari asked.

"Mari!" Denise exclaimed in exasperation. "The Flash was Keystone City's greatest hero, like, ever! Show a little respect!"

"You're lucky you're my friend," Mari said with a sigh.

Recognizing this as the pilot more or less relenting, Denise grabbed her wrist and led her up the stone steps of the museum. Ignoring the huge front doors, she took them to a side door and pounded on it loudly.

A booming voice soon responded. "The museum is closed on Saturdays, you—!"

The shout cut off as the owner of the voice became visible. He was an older man, easily in his sixties, but obviously still vigorous. His back was unbent by age, and while his hair was completely gray, he still had all of it, which he wore in a way that made it look paradoxically unkempt and neat at once. A bushy mustache sat on his upper lip, and he smelled of peppermint and tobacco.

"Oh, it's you, Denise," he said, and though he had obviously calmed down, his voice was still quite loud, as though he thought he was addressing a crowd. "Who's your friend?"

"Hi, Uncle Dexter. This is Mari Illustrious Makinami," she said, then turned to the pilot. "Mari, this is Dexter Myles, my uncle and the curator of the Flash Museum."

"Nice to meet you," Mari said politely, extending her hand.

"Charmed, I'm sure," Dexter said.

He took her hand, but rather than shake it, her brought it to his lips and gently kissed it. His mustache tickled her skin.

"I brought Mari over hoping to give her a private tour of the museum," Denise said. "Is that all right, Uncle Dexter?"

"Of course, of course," Dexter said with a wave of his hand. "I only wish I had the time to show you around myself."

"Paperwork?" Denise asked sympathetically.

"The very bane of my existence," Dexter replied with a gusty sigh. "Lately this job seems to involve more pushing paper than celebrating a hero."

There was a certain grandeur to the man's movements and speech, even as he did nothing more dramatic than complain about his job. It would have surprised Mari not at all to learn he had once been a Shakespearean actor.

"It's all right, Uncle Dexter. We understand," Denise reassured him. "I'm sure I'll be able to point out all the important things to Mari."

"Oh, I have no fear of that," Dexter replied. "Enjoy yourselves, girls."

"Thanks," Denise said, then led the EVA pilot into the museum.

"Is he for real?" Mari asked with a grin.

"Of course he is," Denise replied with a grin. "What, you think there's something unusual about my uncle?" she added with feigned indignation.

The EVA pilot just smiled and shook her head at this. "Well, you finally managed to drag me here," she said. "So show me the place."

Smiling, Denise led the bespectacled girl out of the curator's offices and to the area of the museum that was meant to be viewed by visitors.

Mari had to admit that she was impressed by the museum. It wasn't at all like the dry and boring places she'd occasionally been forced to venture to during one field trip or another, though it smelled almost as old. Statues of the Flash (these not made of stone) were everywhere, allowing her to see that his costume had been red and gold. There were also several of another man in a much simpler getup. He had on blue jeans, a red shirt with a yellow lightning bolt across the front and a metal helmet with little gold wings on it, just like the one the god Mercury wore.

"Who's that guy?" Mari asked.

"That's Jay Garrick, the original Flash," Denise answered. "He gained his super speed in the 1930's. He fought crime right here in Keystone City, and sometime after America entered the war, he went over to Germany."

"What happened to him?" Mari asked.

"Some general or another thought the Flash could storm Hitler's bunker all by himself," Denise said. "Figured he could be in and out and grab the bastard before anyone could stop him, I guess. Maybe end the war. But that didn't happen. Instead Jay Garrick just… disappeared."

Mari frowned. "How could that have happened?"

Denise shrugged. "That's still a mystery. Some people say, though, that Hitler was in possession of some supernatural objects, but that they only affected special people. So when Jay Garrick got too close…" she trailed off, but it was obvious what she would have said.

"Well, I like the hat," Mari commented, trying to lighten the mood.

"That helmet originally belonged to his father. Jay just added the wings," Denise said. "Joseph Garrick was doughboy." She added.

"Like Poppin Fresh?" Mari asked.

Denise turned to her with an annoyed scowl, but then she saw the amused glint in the EVA pilot's eyes and realized that Mari was only joking. She calmed down.

"No, _not_ like Poppin Fresh," Denise said with a small smirk. " 'Doughboy' was what the guys who fought in the trenches during World War I were called."

"Ah," Mari said.

Denise began to walk away from the statue of the original Flash, gesturing for Mari to follow her.

"Anyway, it's not Jay Garrick who's important right now," she said. "You're _sure_ you never heard of Barry Allen?"

"For the millionth time, yes," Mari said, rolling her eyes.

"Well, I think you're related to him," Denise said.

"What?" Mari asked. "How could you know that? _I_ don't know any of my blood relations."

"Come on down to the basement with me," Denise said. "I need to show you something."

Mari did so, discovering that the basement was clearly the place where all the stuff that wasn't on display in the museum was stored. Denise seemed to know the cluttered space well enough to be able to navigate it in the dark, and she effortlessly weaved her way through all the junk.

As she followed her friend, Mari suddenly spotted another statue. This one looked almost exactly like the Flash, except his costume was gold where the Flash's was scarlet, and red where the Flash's was yellow.

"Who's the photo negative?" she asked, hooking a thumb in the statue's direction.

Denise's face darkened. "Negative is right," she said. "That's the Reverse Flash, the last enemy the Flash ever fought."

Mari was about to ask further about this, but Denise arrived at what she wanted to show her friend. The curator's niece pulled a sheet off of what looked like a big sign, or possibly a small billboard, revealing a copy of the Allen family tree.

"Uncle Dexter never really kept this upstairs," Denise said, "because even after the Flash's identity was revealed, he didn't want to make it too easy for people to find his family. But since I'm his niece I get to see even this kind of stuff. And guess what I was able to find out?"

She pointed up at an addition to the family tree that had been recently made, in Denise's handwriting, with a thick sharpie marker. Mari's eyes widened slightly.

An aunt of Barry Allen's had married a man whose last name was Illustrious, which was not, Mari knew, a common surname at all.

"Okay," she said, turning away from the family tree to look her friend. "So say I am related to this guy. So what? I didn't move at super speed. I made time stop for a little while, if it was actually me doing anything at all."

"Relativity," Denise answered. "If someone's moving fast enough, everything else will appear to be moving more slowly than it actually is, or even not at all."

"But even if I am related to Barry Allen, why now?" Mari asked. "I never did anything like that before."

Denise smiled knowingly. "Let's go back upstairs."

The two tromped back up the stairs, and Denise began to lecture about the Flash again as they reached the ground floor of the museum.

"Jay Garrick got his powers from an experiment involving hard water gone wrong," she said. "But a few decades later, Barry Allen became the next Flash in a much more… shocking manner."

They arrived at an exhibit that showed a moment frozen in time, and Mari groaned as she realized that her friend had made a truly terrible pun. The exhibit showed a wax figure of a blond guy in a lab coat who was positioned by a bunch of shelves. Bottles of various liquids were attached to the shelves by thin, stiff wires and made to look as though they were splashing their contents all over him. A lightning bolt created by some gold, shiny foil wrapped over some thin metal wire was forever tearing through the window next to guy and striking him.

"Barry Allen was a forensic scientist," Denise said. "One day he was working late, and lightning struck just as a bunch of chemicals were falling off the shelves and onto him. After that, he could move at superhuman speeds, and he found that he had a much higher metabolism than a normal person and had to eat a lot more than before."

"Just like me," Mari said.

"Got it," Denise said. "And does the incident that gave him his powers remind you of anything? Strange chemical cocktail meets electric shock?"

"The accident with EVA," Mari breathed softly.

"Bingo," Denise said with a grin. "I think what happened to you might have given you a connection to the Speed Force."

"Speed Force?" Mari asked with a frown.

"You know the four fundamental forces they taught us about in physics? Electromagnetic and nuclear and stuff?" Denise asked. "The Speed Force is the fifth fundamental force. People who can access it can't just move really fast, they can sometimes ignore some of the laws of physics as we know them."

Mari raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't somebody be able to do just about _anything_ if they could do that?"

"It's not a total 'Get out of the laws of nature free' card," Denise said. "But it did protect both the Flashes from the effects of moving at super speed. It shouldn't be possible to run at the speeds they did without getting killed, or at least badly hurt, and causing sonic booms. But the Speed Force made it possible."

"So you think I can do all this?" Mari asked. "Run faster than sound?"

"Yeah," Denise answered. "I do. Mari, I think you could be the next Flash."

"Be the next Flash?" the pilot asked incredulously. "Denise, are you crazy? I can't be the Flash!"

"Why not? Mari, if you really have these powers, then that means you're the fastest girl alive. You should be able to do it all," Denise said. Then when Mari looked ready to protest again, she added. "Mari, do you have any idea what the appearance of a new Flash would mean to this city? To this _country_?"

Mari was silent for a moment, turning to look at one of the costumed statues of Barry Allen.

"Well, there's one thing I know for sure," she said.

"What's that?"

"This is all moot unless I actually do have super speed," she said, a slow grin forming on her face. "So it looks like I get to try and see if I really do have superpowers."

* * *

The two of them spent roughly twenty more minutes at the museum, with Denise telling Mari a bit about the colorful costumed enemies of the second Flash. However, they were really just killing time so as not to make Dexter suspicious by leaving so soon.

Then they left, hopping on another bus, this time venturing to the very edge of the city with only a brief stop along the way. A ten-minute walk took them outside of the city entirely, and to an area of flat land, the type of which characterized Kansas.

"Y'know, Denise, I'm really starting to hope that you're right," Mari commented as she wrapped duct table around her shoes for a little extra protection. They had stopped at a hardware store to pick it up. "This super speed thing sounds exciting."

Denise nodded, obviously even more excited by what was happening than Mari herself. "Well, you ready?"

"Yup," Mari replied, ripping the tape and setting the roll aside. "Time to see if I can really do this."

She squatted down, bending her knees and touching the ground with her fingertips, getting into the classic ready position of the sprinter.

"On your mark," Denise said. "Get set…"

Mari drew a deep, slow breath, trying to will whatever had happened on that rainy night she probably should have died to happen again. It wasn't easy; she didn't remember what she was feeling then, save for a fading headache. But then Mari had always been comfortable trusting her instincts, so she didn't really need to remember.

"Go!"

Mari Illustrious Makinami took off, golden lightning crawling over her form and streaking after her as she ran at an incredible pace. It was the most exhilarating thing she'd ever done.

But it was also wrong. The EVA pilot could feel that she was doing it wrong as soon as she started doing it. Her eyes weren't keeping up with her feet; the world was a complete blur of motion around her, moving much too quickly for her brain to even try to process.

More than that, though, she also experienced a deep, gut sensation of wrongness. It almost felt as if she had tried to drive a car with a manual gear shift and had forgotten to pop the clutch; gears were grinding in protest as they were forced together, and in seconds their teeth would be stripped. She forced herself to an abrupt stop.

It was too abrupt. Mari felt herself trip on something and she pitched forward. Her momentum kept her going for a good distance, and she repeatedly tumbled end over end on the ground, which was still soft and muddy from the other day's deluge. Finally, she came to a stop, feeling extremely dazed.

The whole thing had taken not quite five eighths of a second, and Mari was easily a quarter mile away from her starting point.

Denise sprinted toward her friend, all of the brilliant girl's enthusiasm now drowned beneath a great tide of fear. "Oh my god! Mari! Mari, are you all right?"

The EVA pilot made no move to get up. She was splattered with mud all over, the elastic bands which held her pony tails together had been lost, and her glasses were badly askew.

She laughed delightedly. "That…was… _awesome!_"

Denise blinked stupidly. "Mari…"

"My heart's pounding," the pilot noted exuberantly. "That was, like, a million times better than all the EVA combat sims put together!"

"Mari."

"I practically felt like I was flying!"

"Mari!" Denise shouted.

"What?" the pilot asked.

"Look at yourself!" Denise said, and only now did Mari notice how distraught her friend seemed. "Your hair! Your nails!"

Blinking, Mari looked down at her hands was surprised to realize that her fingernails had grown impossibly long. They had gotten so long that they had actually started to curl over.

Quickly reaching behind herself, Mari grabbed a fistful of her hair and trailed her hand down the length of it. Her already long locks had grown so much that they could probably now reach to her knees when she stood.

"What the hell?" she muttered, bewildered.

"I think…" Denise began in a small voice, and then had to moisten her lips before she could speak again. "I think that using your new super-speed might have some kind of accelerated aging effect."

Mari finally adjusted her glasses, being careful not to poke herself with her overgrown nails as she did so. "And it looks like I was due for a growth spurt," she commented, noticing that about an inch of wrist was showing from the sleeve of her shirt, which had fit perfectly only minutes ago.

Denise said nothing as Mari continued to inspect herself.

"Whoa!" the bespectacled girl suddenly exclaimed. "Check _these_ out!"

She cupped her breasts in her hands and hefted them up. Denise's eyes bulged even as her face reddened, the gesture making what Mari's fairly loose shirt had previously concealed very obvious.

Yesterday, the pilot's endowment had been on the large side of average for girls their age—but only just. Now, Mari was bigger than a lot of full grown women. And on her relatively small frame… well, the effect invoked more than a little jealousy in Denise.

"I'll bet I'm bigger than that bitch Traci!" Mari continued to marvel over her chest.

"Mari!" Denise snapped. "Focus! This is serious!"

The EVA pilot reluctantly let go of her breasts and turned to look up at her friend.

"I know this might seem pretty cool now, but you can't ever use your super-speed again," Denise said. "Not with this accelerated aging effect. You could end up turning yourself into an old woman!"

"Relax, Denise," Mari said nonchalantly. "I was doing it wrong before. I could feel it. I think I know the right way to do this now."

Before her friend could protest, the pilot began to move at super-speed again, but this time it was different. This time Mari had a better idea of what she was doing. This time, her perceptions shifted up along with her speed, preventing that out-of-control sensation from before.

Manipulating the powers of the Speed Force was already starting to become a second nature to her.

She broke her too-long nails down to more reasonable lengths, not taking much care to try and preserve their appearance. She couldn't grow her nails long at all, anyway; her plug suit's gloves wouldn't allow it.

Then she reached behind herself and tied her hair into a single, very long braid, making it far more manageable.

Thus prepared, the pilot got up and began to run in a great circle around Denise. The sensation of insane, uncontrollable speed was absent, but she still felt like she was moving fast enough to make her heart beat fast with excitement and for her body to release adrenaline into her system. It was almost like riding on a rollercoaster as opposed to careening toward who-knew-what in an out of control car.

Meanwhile, Denise could only watch as a blur raced around the plains. Watch and hope that her friend knew what she was doing.

Finally, Mari came to a stop right next to Denise, with a big goofy grin on her face and mercifully looking like she was the same age she'd been a minute ago.

"This is incredible!" she exclaimed. "Tell me more about these Flash characters."

* * *

Satisfied with their experimentation, the two girls returned to the city, heading for Jessie's apartment. The lieutenant was mercifully not home at the moment, having gone to NERV for something or other, and Mari was able to take a shower and change out of her muddy clothes without having to answer awkward questions. After she was clean again, the two girls managed to track down a sharp pair of scissors and Denise trimmed her friend's hair back its usual length.

"So you'll actually do it?" Denise asked eagerly as she made a few, last careful snips to Mari's hair. "You'll become the third Flash?"

"I'll give it a shot, at least," Mari replied gamely. "It sounds like a blast."

"_Yes!_" Denise cheered. "It'll be so cool to have another scarlet speedster in Keystone! And Uncle Dexter will be _so_ thrilled."

"Hey, speaking of the whole 'scarlet speedster' thing, what am I gonna do about a costume?" Mari asked. "I can't do this as myself. NERV would _freak_."

"Don't worry, I've got you covered," Denise said, grinning as she withdrew something from her pocket. "I took this from the museum."

Mari frowned as Denise held out her hand, a small gold ring with a lightning bolt emblem on the top sitting in her palm.

"Okay, number one: was it smart for you to nab something from the museum, and number two: how is that thing supposed to help me?" the pilot asked.

"Oh, we have like two dozen of these things in the basement of the museum," Denise said dismissively. "Barry Allen kept a lot of extras, and the museum's got them all. Uncle Dex will never notice that one disappeared."

"Okay, but how is it supposed to help me?" Mari asked again.

Denise grinned. "Barry Allen was a master of chemistry. He was able to create a costume for himself that would shrink to the size of an aspirin tablet when it was exposed to the gas inside this ring, and grow to full size when it came into contact with regular air. That way he was able to carry his costume with him everywhere. He just pressed this button," she showed Mari a little stud on the side of the ring, "and he could be the Flash in, well, a flash. Give it a try."

She handed the ring to Mari, who took it and pushed the little button. Age apparently hadn't decayed the mechanism hidden inside the ring; the top of it sprang open immediately, and a small red object popped out.

More on instinct than anything else, Mari's perceptions kicked into "speed mode" and she saw the costume start to grow and unfurl as though in slow motion. Her gaze flicked up and saw that Denise appeared as still as a statue.

Grinning, Mari grabbed hold of the costume, which had already expanded to a size large enough for her to wear. Quickly ditching her own clothes, the pilot donned the red and gold garb.

Time snapped back to its normal speed.

"Uh, Denise, I don't think this is going to work," Mari observed as a large drop of sweat rolled down the back of her head.

She realized that she had put the costume on before it had finished growing to its full size, and now Barry Allen's costume was _far_ too large for her. Her arms were lost somewhere in the middle of the sleeves, and her feet were likewise nowhere near the boots. The material hung very loosely off the rest of her frame, looking either comical or pathetic, depending upon whom you asked.

To make matters worse, she couldn't wear her glasses because the mask's wing-fins didn't support them like her ears did. There was also the problem of her hair; the mask that covered the head had worked for Barry Allen because he'd had a crew cut. Mari's hair caused the mask to bulge out strangely at the top.

Denise took all this in wordlessly while giving her chin a thoughtful stroke. "Yeah," she agreed after a moment. "This'll require some serious modifications. I'll have to see what I can do."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** And so it is now apparent to all just which hero Mari is. The Flash is definitely one of my favorite superheroes, so I expect to enjoy writing this one a lot. Now, onto my usual chapter one rambling.

Why did I pick the Flash for Mari? There were a lot of reasons, many of which I can't reveal without spoiling parts of the story, but a lot of it had to do with the Justice League cartoon. In that, the Flash always struck me as kind of being the odd man out, due to his lightheartedness and immaturity when compared to the far more serious superheroes. Mari hits me the same way. She doesn't quite seem to fit with the rest of the characters of Eva to me, so I decided to play that up with this fic.

You might also be wondering why I included Jay Garrick and Barry Allen in the history of the SOE2-verse, when the other ladies lack their own superhero predecessors (except sort of Misato). Originally it began with me trying to feel like I'd won brownie points by mirroring the SOE1 series (incidentally, I considered making Mari into Stargirl a.k.a. the Star Spangled Kid for a while, but the idea just never clicked), in which Mari likewise takes up a mantle that originally belonged to someone else. However, I later came to realize that it opened a lot of options to me.

Oh, and fair warning, I'm definitely going to do my best to respect the Flash mythos, but I also intend to twist and contort Barry Allen's personal history quite a bit for my needs.

Robby Cartwright, this is indeed going to be a Mari/Shinji pairing.

Anyway, enough of my justification for my various insanities. Thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well. Now for some fun.

* * *

A Little Dense

"That's Jay Garrick, the original Flash," Denise answered. "He gained his super speed in the 1930's. He fought crime right here in Keystone City, and sometime after America entered the war, he went over to Germany."

"Well, I like the hat," Mari commented.

"That helmet originally belonged to his father. Jay just added the wings," Denise said. "Joseph Garrick was doughboy." She added.

"Like Poppin Fresh?" Mari asked.

Denise turned to her with an annoyed scowl. "No, _not_ like Poppin Fresh," Denise said. " 'Doughboy' was what the guys who fought in the trenches during World War I were called."

"Ah," Mari said. "So he wouldn't giggle if you poked him in the stomach?"

"No! He wasn't anything like Poppin Fresh!" Denise snapped. "He was a soldier!"

"I see," Mari said. "So he _wouldn't_ bring me muffins?"

"Argh!" Denise growled, and swatted Mari on the back of the head. "No! He was soldier! Not a character created for a series of advertisements! Baka!"

Mari frowned. "Baka?" she echoed. "Denise, this might be a fanfic of an anime, but it's set in America right now. We're presumably speaking English here. Why would you call me 'baka'?"

Denise frowned in confusion. Then she abruptly seemed to decide to pretend as if the little slip had never happened. "Let's continue the tour."

Mari shrugged and followed her deeper into the museum.

(Random Fact: the guy who created Alan Scott, the golden age Green Lantern, also created the Pillsbury Doughboy.)

* * *

Mari Illustrious Makinami: Internet Legend

"On your mark," Denise said. "Get set…"

Mari drew a deep, slow breath, trying to will whatever had happened on that rainy night she probably should have died to happen again. It wasn't easy; she didn't remember what she was feeling then, save for a fading headache. But then Mari had always been comfortable trusting her instincts, so she didn't really need to remember.

"Go!"

Mari Illustrious Makinami took off, golden lightning crawling over her form and streaking after her as she ran at an incredible pace. It was the most exhilarating thing she'd ever done.

But it was also wrong. The EVA pilot could feel that she was doing it wrong as soon as she started doing it. Her eyes weren't keeping up with her feet; the world was a complete blur of motion around her, moving much too quickly for her brain to even try to process.

More than that, though, she also experienced a deep, gut sensation of wrongness. It almost felt as if she had tried to drive a car with a manual gear shift and had forgotten to pop the clutch; gears were grinding in protest as they were forced together, and in seconds their teeth would be stripped. She forced herself to an abrupt stop.

And that was when she became aware of the pain.

"Ow!" she shouted, grabbing hold of one of her feet.

Her bare feet. The friction of her brief, super-speed run had totally destroyed her shoes, and her feet now felt like they were on fire.

"Hot! Hot! Hot!" she wailed, bouncing around crazily from one foot to another.

From a short distance away, Denise watched stupefied. Not only was her friend bouncing around like a jumping bean, she was doing so almost completely naked. The force of her run had apparently ripped off most of her clothing, which was strewn about the plains, and she was clad only in her undergarments.

And, Denise realized with mounting shock, Mari had _seriously_ grown in one specific area. She was bouncing all over the place as she jumped, and her suddenly overtaxed bra looked like it might give up the ghost at any second.

She raised the camcorder she'd brought to document the birth of the third Flash.

_Even if the superhero thing doesn't work out, I can make a fortune selling this on the internet!_ She thought with an evil smirk.

* * *

Meanwhile, over in Japan, Kensuke was seeking…professional help.

"Oh, madam fortuneteller, please tell me where I can find my soul mate!" he pleaded, placing a few yen down on the woman's table.

"Hmm, yes, I see," the fortuneteller replied, gazing into her crystal ball. "Your soul mate is in America. Kansas. Just outside of Keystone City to be precise. She is currently witnessing the inglorious start of a new superhero."

Kensuke's face twisted into an incredulous expression. "Geeze, you know, I wasn't sure if this was real or not, but you could at least make it seem like you're taking me seriously, rather than just BS-ing like this."

"Kid, wait—!"

But it was too late. Kensuke had already stormed out.


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Two: **The Homefront

Mari Illustrious Makinami was running in a circle.

If just about anyone else had been doing this, it wouldn't have been a big deal at all. At most, the runner might eventually get a case of the dizzies and then tumble to the ground in a heap.

Of course, unlike most everyone else, Mari Illustrious Makinami could run at several times the speed of sound without even breaking a sweat, and she was doing so right at that very moment.

"You're doing it, Mari!" Denise cheered from a safe distance away, watching as dust from the Kansas plains began to swirl about through the air.

Seconds later, there was a funnel of air created by Mari's super speed; her circular running had created a bona fide twister, albeit a rather small one.

"Yeah! You did it!" Denise shouted exuberantly, even as wind from the twister her friend had created caused her clothes to go whipping about.

In the blink of an eye, Mari was no longer near the whirlwind and was instead standing next to her friend. "Okay, this sounded pretty goofy when you suggested it, but I have to admit it's actually pretty cool," the pilot said, gazing at her handiwork.

"Yeah," Denise said absently, now eyeing the twister with a rather concerned gaze. The rapidly churning wind was starting to wander about, appearing to have a mind of its own without Mari there to keep it confined to one spot. "Hey, are you gonna get rid of that thing now?"

"You didn't tell me how to do that yet," Mari pointed out.

"So you just didn't ask?" Denise said, blinking.

Mari shrugged. "It's not like there's anything all the way out here for that thing to blow down," she pointed out nonchalantly.

"…Run around it in a circle again, but this time, go the other way," Denise replied, sounding slightly exasperated.

"Right!" Mari said, and then she was off.

Denise watched as her friend ran a few thousand laps around the small twister in the space of the couple of seconds, and the whirlwind quickly began to slow down, losing its distinct shape. In a moment, the funnel of air had come completely unraveled, and Mari came to a stop.

"Sweet!" the EVA pilot commented.

"How are you doing with the other techniques I told you about?" Denise asked.

"I'm definitely getting the hang of them," Mari replied. "In fact, they're starting to feel natural, like I could always do them or something. Which is weird, considering that I thought you were nuts when you told me I could vibrate my molecules, and that would let me run through solid objects or become invisible."

"Well, of course you can do it," Denise said smugly. "It's a Flash Fact."

Mari rolled her eyes. Her friend had been using that little phrase—which came from a big sign in the museum that displayed various different bits of information, like what the exact speed of sound was—_way_ too much lately in Mari's opinion.

"So, how are you doing with my costume?" the pilot asked, changing the subject. "I can't really be the Flash until it's done."

"Relax," Denise said. "I got it all figured out. It should be ready in a couple of days. A week at most."

"Are you sure?" Mari asked skeptically. "I mean, after what happened last time…"

Denise winced slightly at the memory. Using the information the museum had about Barry Allen's costumes and her own keen intelligence, she had applied a chemical to one of the suits that would cause it to expand less when it was removed from the special costume ring.

The problem was, the museum didn't have Barry Allen's original notes from when he'd made the costume, and without them, Denise had only been able to estimate how much of the chemical to use. And she'd estimated wrong; when she'd released the treated costume from the ring again, it had only grown large enough to clothe a doll.

And even if that had worked, it didn't resolve the issue of the wing-fins keeping Mari from wearing her glasses. Or the way the cowl looked weird on someone with long hair.

"I'm sure, I'm sure," Denise said, waving a hand dismissively. "My new solution will have you a good costume soon. I guarantee it."

* * *

_Two days ago…_

Denise hummed to herself as she rode the bus which went from Keystone to Central City. A casual observer might have thought that she was merely in a good mood, but that wasn't the case. She was humming a cheery tune to try and cover up how nervous she felt.

After her recent failures in the field of costume alteration, Denise had come up with a new idea, but it certainly wasn't without risks. In fact, there was a fairly slim-but-real chance that what she was about to do could go very wrong, which was why she was doing it alone and hadn't told Mari about what she was doing.

The bus pulled into one of Central City's bus stations and came to a stop with a hiss of brakes. Denise and the other passengers got off, and the teenage girl made her way outside to the sidewalk. She took out some directions she'd printed out from Google maps earlier, scanned them, looked around to get her bearings, and then started walking down the street.

It wasn't long before she was standing in front of a tailor's shop. Sandwiched between a Subway's and a small bookstore, and with a bunch of mannequins wearing the owner's products standing in the window, the shop couldn't have looked more modest or ordinary. It certainly didn't appear to be the sort of place that should evoke the level of apprehension the teenage girl who stood before it was currently feeling.

Taking a deep breath, Denise walked in.

A little bell attached to the door tinkled as she entered, and the sound immediately caused the proprietor to appear from a back room. He was a heavyset man who looked to be in his early seventies or late eighties. The top of his head was bald, and his remaining hair had long ago turned white. He wore plain black pants, a button-up shirt, a tie, and a dark blue vest. A pair of unstylish glasses with thick black rims sat on his face, and a long tape measure was draped over his shoulders.

He didn't look at all dangerous, and he probably wasn't, but Denise knew that he almost certainly still had very dangerous friends.

"Can I help you?" the old tailor asked.

"That depends," Denise said. "Are you Paul Gambi?"

"That's what they call me," the man replied gruffly.

"I heard they used to call you something else, too," Denise said. "The 'Crime Tailor'. The one who made the costumes for the Flash's rogues. Good costumes, too. Ones that could withstand all the abuse the rogues put themselves through."

Gambi was instantly on guard. "That was never proved," he said. "And even if it was true, that was a long time ago."

"Oh, sure," Denise said, "but, if you _were_ the 'Crime Tailor'—hypothetically speaking, of course—why did you do it? Help equip people like the rogues?"

"Well, so long as we're speaking hypothetically, I suppose the biggest reason I did it was for the same reason I make clothing for anybody else who walks in here: the money," he replied.

"So it was all business?" Denise asked.

"Well, if I _did_ work for the rogues, and I'm not saying I did, I probably would've known 'em a little," Gambi said. "And if I knew them a little, I probably would've seen that while they were bad guys, there weren't _evil_ men, if that makes any sense. Least the ones I made costumes for—if I ever made costumes for any of 'em—weren't. That psycho Murmur, for instance, never got a costume from the Crime Tailor."

Denise nodded. "So, how would you feel about making one more special costume, for someone a little… different from the rogues?"

"Dunno," Gambi replied. "Tell me more about the job."

"First, how… discreet are you about these special jobs? Assuming you ever took any?" Denise asked.

"I always felt that the tailor-customer relationship was as private as the doctor-patient one," Gambi answered.

"Good," Denise said, reaching into her pocket and taking out a folded-up piece of paper. Unfolding it, she handed it over to the tailor. "I want you to make this."

His eyebrows went up as he looked at it. The colored sketch Denise had made showed a costume design that was modified from Barry Allen's costume, complete with various specifications, measurements, and other important notes.

Gambi's gaze took in the measurements, then flicked over to Denise. "This isn't for you," he said flatly.

Blushing furiously, she quickly crossed her arms over her modest chest, which wouldn't have come close to filling out the desired costume. Gambi rolled his eyes.

"Of course it's not for me!" she snapped. "You think she'd come here herself?"

Gambi just shook his head, knowing it probably wouldn't be too hard for a properly motivated individual to find whoever the costume was meant for through whatever links she might have to this girl. "I guess not," he said.

"So will you make it?" Denise asked. "The rogues are all retired, in prison, or dead. She won't do anything to them."

Gambi considered the sketch for a moment. "Yeah, I'll make it."

"Great!" Denise exclaimed. "How much?"

Gambi shook his head. "Used to be, I'd charge an arm and a leg for this kind of thing," he said, "but it's been a long time since I had an interesting job. Tell you what, I'll do it for three-hundred bucks."

Denise winced slightly, even though that was far less than she'd feared. Fortunately, she'd always made a habit of saving more than she spent. The girl produced a trio of hundred dollar bills and handed them over.

"How long will it take?" she asked.

"This job's pretty complex. I even have to special order the fabric, never mind all this other stuff," he said, glancing at the sketch. "Fortunately, you caught me in a lull. I should have it ready in about a week."

Denise nodded. "I'll be back to pick it up then."

* * *

_Present Time…_

"Your new solution doesn't involve, I don't know, making a deal with the mafia or something, does it?" Mari asked.

"No, no, of course not," Denise said with a small, forced chuckle, a little nervous because the guess wasn't _that_ far off.

Mari was seriously considering pressing her friend for the details of her latest plan, and Denise could see it in her eyes. So she quickly changed the subject before the pilot could.

"So how's all the other stuff doing?" Denise asked.

"Well, Jessie's noticed that I've grown, but she didn't realize that it happened practically overnight," Mari said. "I've also stopped getting purple highlights in my hair. I should be a regular old brunette again soon. Kinda sucks, though. I really liked that look."

"Yeah, I know, but it would make it a lot easier for someone to figure out who the new Flash is if you kept the highlights," Denise said. "How's the, uh…?" she stammered.

She awkwardly gestured at Mari's chest, which currently appeared to be much reduced from the size it had been after her first experimental super speed run.

"These Ace bandages I have wrapped around me are as uncomfortable as _hell_," Mari groaned, "but they do make me look more like I did before."

"Are you loosening them a little bit everyday?" Denise asked.

"Yeah," Mari said. "Can't wait until I can ditch them entirely, but I keep thinking someone will notice just how damn fast I'm 'growing.'"

"I think Bobby Franks in math class has already noticed, but I really don't think he cares at all about the _why_," Denise said, getting a snicker from Mari. "Seriously, though, people will just think you're having a growth spurt, especially with the way you're eating everything in sight. And since you were apparently due for one anyway, it's not exactly a crazy idea."

"Good point," Mari said. "You know, you're really good at this 'assistant to a superhero' thing, Denise."

"Thanks," Denise said. "Now, why don't we get out of here? I don't think there's much of anything else for you to practice."

"Works for me," Mari agreed. "You mind if we stop someplace to eat on the way back? I'm starving!"

Denise rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

* * *

The next day found Mari back at the NERV base, having just wrapped up a sync test and a series of combat simulations. Always in a good mood after a chance to tear some virtual Angels limb from limb, her smile only widened as she emerged from the locker room and spotted a familiar face.

"Hiya, Hutch!" she greeted the base's head scientist cheerfully. "How'd I do in the sync test today?"

He paled slightly at the sight of her. "Oh, just fine, Pilot Makinami," Dr. Hutchinson replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to be going."

Mari was barely able to restrain a laugh as she watched him almost sprint away. She had recently found out that the reason Jessie had gone to the base on the evening when she had been testing her new super speed was to chew out the scientist. By the looks of it, her guardian had really let the guy have it.

_Looks like I won't have to worry about him wanting to run any more experiments for a while,_ Mari thought as she started walking through the halls.

It wasn't long before she found her guardian. "Hey, Jessie," she greeted. "Ready to hit the road?"

"Not just yet, Mari," Jessie replied, and the pilot noticed a concerned expression on her guardian's face.

"What's wrong?" Mari asked.

"Nothing, nothing's wrong," Jessie said, waving a dismissive hand. "It's just that there's a Special Inspector here from the UN. We can't leave until he gets to speak with you."

Mari frowned. She knew that the UN made a point of keeping tabs on the various branches of NERV, or at least tried to, but the inspections had always been very regular in the past. There shouldn't have been another one for a few months yet.

Then she shrugged. It wasn't like she had anything to hide, at least not where her NERV-related activities were concerned, anyway.

"Okay, so where is the guy?" Mari asked.

"He commandeered Vreeland's office," Jessie said.

Mari wasn't impressed by the inspector's ability to throw the base's Vice Commander from his own office. If he'd managed to kick Commander Wells out of his office, on the other hand, _then_ the EVA pilot would have been put on her guard.

"Right," Mari said. "I'll go talk to the guy and meet you by the entrance to the base. I'll be there in fifteen minutes, probably."

"Okay, Mari," Jessie said. "Remember, don't say anything crazy to the guy."

"Oh, c'mon, Jessie, do I ever say anything crazy?" Mari asked.

"All the time," her guardian said flatly. "Now go and get this over with."

Nodding, Mari turned and headed for Vreeland's office, sending her pony tails swinging through the air. Minutes later, she was knocking on the door.

"Come in," a man's voice called.

Mari opened the door and walked inside, finding the Special Inspector sitting at Vreeland's huge oak desk, writing on some papers.

He wasn't at all what the pilot was expecting. Instead of one of the clean cut, suit-wearing inspectors she was used to, this man was wearing plain brown pants, a slightly rumpled, powder blue shirt, and a red tie that was more than loose enough to look sloppy. His long, dark hair was held in a short ponytail, and he had a five o'clock shadow—which, considering it was barely noon, was a pretty good sign he hadn't shaved that morning. A small, vaguely sardonic smile was on his face, and he smelled of Old Spice.

But what really drew Mari's eyes was the big metal suitcase that was sitting on the desk. A pair of handcuffs bound it to his right wrist, like a government agent ferrying top secret papers or something.

"Hello, there," the man said in barely passable English, standing up. "You must be Mari Makinami, the pilot of the Provisional Evangelion Unit. I'm Ryoji Kaji. Pleased to meet you."

He reached across the desk to shake her hand, which was a far more awkward process than it normally would have been, because he had to lift the case with his left hand to keep it from swinging around freely.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Kaji," Mari said, then switched languages. "I'm perfectly fluent in Japanese, if that would be easier for you."

"Arigato," Kaji said, gesturing for her to sit down in a chair situated by her side of the desk. "I'm pleased to hear that you're so comfortable with the language."

Mari shrugged. "I'm a quick study, so long as the subject's not history," she said. "So what's with the case?" she asked, gesturing toward the thing.

"Oh, this?" Kaji asked nonchalantly. "Just a special package I have to deliver."

"Well, be careful," Mari said. "I've seen movies where guys carry around suitcases like that, and the Soviets are always trying to cut off his hand to get at what's inside."

Kaji chuckled. "I doubt I'll be encountering a lot of Soviets on my way to Japan."

"You're heading to Japan?" Mari asked.

"Yes, after a stopover in Germany," Kaji replied.

Mari arched an eyebrow. "Isn't it quicker to go west if you're heading for Japan?"

Kaji smiled, clearly amused. "Yes, but you see, I have to go to Germany first, because I'm going to be escorting the Second Child to Tokyo-3."

Mari's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "What?!" she exclaimed. "Why does Asuka get to go to the front while I'm still stuck here?!" she demanded.

Kaji shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't know the full reasoning behind the decision to have you remain here in the States for the moment," he said. "Mostly bureaucratic infighting and red tape, from what I understand."

Mari groaned, rubbing her forehead. "I don't believe this," she grumbled. "At this rate, I'll miss the whole war."

"Well, you seem rather distraught about that," Kaji commented, looking bemused.

"Don't wanna rehearse forever and then never get to perform the play," Mari replied, visibly letting go of her irritation. "So, Kaji-san, let's cut to the chase here: what brings you to Bethany Base?"

"I happened to be in the area, and the UN asked me to check in here," Kaji said. "They heard about the incident that occurred during the sync test a few days ago, and they're rather concerned."

"Oh, that?" Mari asked in a dismissive tone. "Look, that was really nothing. Some wires got crossed inside my EVA, and I got a little shock. Everybody around here made _way_ too big a deal out of it."

She might have been willing to jerk this guy's chain around a little, but the _last_ thing she wanted to do was give him the impression that she might not be fit for duty. If the UN was reluctant to let her get into the conflict now, then allowing a Special Inspector to leave with the belief that she might not be perfectly healthy and hale would make them confine her to the sidelines for the duration of the war for sure.

Kaji arched an eyebrow at her response and plucked a tan folder out of the pile of papers he had on the desk. Opening it, he quickly scanned the contents. "It says here that the plug was briefly electrified with a…hell of lot of power," he said. "Far more than constitutes a 'little shock.' Most people would've been pretty badly hurt."

"Well, I'm not most people. I'm a trained soldier, and an EVA-tough one, too. Check it out," Mari said, rolling up her sleeve.

She flexed her arm, causing her biceps--which her military training had caused to grow to an impressively large size for a teenage girl--to politely pop up and make their presence known. "See?" she asked. "Do I _look_ sick or injured to you?"

"No, you appear to be very healthy," Kaji admitted.

"Aw, thanks," Mari replied. "You'd be really cute, too, if you shaved."

Kaji blinked, taken aback. Then a snicker escaped him before he was able to get himself under control. "Yes, well, now that we've got that issue out of the way, there are a few other questions I have for you…"

Most of the rest of Kaji's inquiries concerned routine matters, the kinds of things that all the UN inspectors asked, or the circumstances that led up to the malfunction that caused her to get shocked. Mari gave him the standard answers to the former and just told him the truth to the latter, not about to lie in an attempt to protect Hutchinson.

"Are we almost done here?" Mari asked after a few minutes of questions. "I don't know about you, but I have places to go and people to see."

"Almost, Makinami-san," Kaji said. "Just one more—"

He was abruptly cut off by a loud, high pitched noise that Mari had never heard outside of drills and the like before.

The unmistakable sound of the base's Angel alarm.

"Sorry, Kaji-san, but it sounds like they're playing my song," Mari said, getting up so quickly that she knocked over the chair she'd been sitting in. "Catch you later!"

_Please don't be a drill. Please don't be a drill,_ she thought as she sprinted out of the room, heading back toward the locker room. Once inside, she practically ripped off her clothing in her rush to get changed. She got into her plug suit more quickly than she ever had before, though she still grimaced as she pressed the button to make the suit contract. The thing had already been getting too small before she'd accidentally used her new abilities to age herself a few months. Now it was pretty damn uncomfortable.

_At least I don't have to wear those damn bandages underneath it,_ she thought to herself, even as she ignored the discomfort that her suit caused her and headed for the cage.

When she arrived in the huge room where her Unit Five was kept, she found the base's technicians frantically going over some last minute preparations, thus reassuring her that a real battle truly was about to unfold.

"Is Unit Five ready?" she asked the technician in charge of the cage.

"Yeah," the harried looking man answered, "she's all primed and ready to go. The brass told me to tell you to board her immediately. They'll brief you as we're moving Unit Five to the lift."

"Right," Mari agreed, immediately making her way to the entry plug. However, she stopped when she was only halfway inside the thing. "Hey, one thing before I head out!"

"What?" the cage leader asked.

"Unit Five isn't a 'she.' He's a guy!" Mari said.

The cage leader gave her an incredulous look, clearly unable to believe that the EVA pilot would spend precious seconds clarifying the gender of the giant death machine she piloted.

"Fine, it's a guy!" the man snapped, abruptly recovering. "Just go!"

Grinning impishly, Mari disappeared into the plug, sitting in her command seat. She quickly started to attach the various cable to be found inside the plug to the arms of her suit and then donned her big helmet. Immediately, the plug started to fill with LCL, and the visor in her helmet swirled with the familiar kaleidoscope of wild colors before showing her the inside of the cage.

As her mind linked with Unit Five, she could feel its eagerness for violence and combat as she always did. She knew that she would finally be able to give it what it had wanted for so long, and she thought that it knew, too. She swore she could feel its excitement, rivaling her own in intensity.

A window marked FROM COMMAND opened up on her visor before the plug was even half full, showing the visage of Commander Wells.

"Pilot Makinami, a few minutes ago, an Angel appeared on our radar without any warning. It's like it just appeared from thin air," the venerable old soldier began without preamble. "The base computer is analyzing it now, but at the moment, all we know is what it looks like, and that it's approaching fast."

Another window popped up on her visor, showing Mari an image of the Angel. The thing had one blocky, central body, to which a pair of long "arms" that looked more like giant human spines were attached. On the end of each of the arms was an equally bony, vaguely bird-like skull, fairly similar to the face of the Third Angel.

"Wow, even by the Angels' standards, this one is _ugly_," Mari commented.

"Take this seriously, Pilot," Wells ordered. "Remember, this isn't Tokyo-3. We don't have weapons turrets the size of skyscrapers. We have _one_ Patriot missile battery to back you up."

"Kill it, and do it all by myself," Mari said. "Got it."

It was approximately this point that Mari felt Unit Five begin to move. Because of the size of the Provisional Unit, it needed a much bigger delivery system than the "standard" Evangelions. Unit Five was being moved to the lift by the single largest, most powerful conveyor belt ever built by the hands of man.

"We'll be sending you intel as we get it," Wells said. "And remember, no grandstanding."

"Roger that, sir," Mari replied.

Her impish grin didn't reassure the Commander one bit, but he didn't say anything else to her. He merely gave her a long warning look and then closed the connection.

Immediately after that communications window had winked out, another opened up, this time showing Jessie's worried face.

"Hey, Mari," she said softly.

"Hey, Jessie," Mari replied, unable to restrain her excitement for even a moment.

"Looks like this is it, kiddo," Jessie said, taking a deep breath. "Your first real battle."

"Yup," Mari said. "Hey, five bucks says I can kill it in under five minutes."

"No bet," Jessie said, shaking her head. "Listen, Mari, I know you've been training for this sort of thing for years, that you're gonna knock this out of the park, and that I shouldn't be worried. But still…be careful, all right?"

Under normal circumstances, Mari probably would have replied that the word "careful" wasn't in her vocabulary and never had been.

However, the sight of concern shining in her guardian's eyes kept her from saying that.

"I won't take any unnecessary risks, Jessie," she said instead.

"Good," Jessie replied. "All right, Mari, show 'em what you're made of."

Mari nodded, and the communications window snapped closed, leaving her alone in the plug.

It took NERV nearly two minutes to get the bulky Provisional EVA Unit from the cage to the gigantic lift that would take it to the surface. Mari spent the time by humming a little tune to herself which one of the technicians who often oversaw her combat simulations had written and recorded a copy of himself. At her request, he would often play it when she was tearing virtual Angels limb from limb.

He had named the melody, appropriately enough, "Decisive Battle".

There was a dull thump as the conveyor belt finally deposited her onto the specially made Evangelion lift, then a deep hum that Mari recognized as the magnetic locks engaging. With the other Evangelions, NERV applied simple but enormous shackles to the feet in order to keep inertia from sending the mecha flying into the air at the end of their brief, very fast trip to the surface. But since Unit Five had no real feet, its lift instead utilized magnets to achieve the same result.

"Evangelion Unit Five, launch!" she heard Command Wells bellow over her radio.

The Provisional EVA instantly began to rocket up the lift shaft, and Mari grit her teeth at the sensation of force pressing down upon her, similar to that of a very fast rollercoaster but far more intense.

With a thought, she caused a tactical map of the area to appear on his visor, showing her the Angel's location relative to her own. The damn thing was right next to the point on the surface where she would exit the lift.

A wicked grin formed on Mari's face, and she slammed her fist down on one of the buttons inside her cockpit.

The words "MAGNETIC LOCKS DISENGAGED" flashed before her eyes in big, block letters.

"Mari!" Jessie exclaimed, her communications window reappearing on her visor. "What are you—?"

Unit Five reached the end of the lift before the lieutenant could even finish asking the question, the huge death machine flying straight up into the air.

The Kansas sun beat down on the unusual Evangelion for the first time in a very long time, its light shining off the Provisional Unit's green and white hull. Unlike the other EVA's out there, Unit Five had four long, almost spidery legs which each ended in a great wheel that could be shifted in position to become a simple sort of foot if the situation demanded it. One of its robotic arms ended in a progressive lance that was almost as long as the Evangelion's torso, and the other, equally mechanical upper extremity terminated in a simple, metallic pincer.

Letting out a whoop of wild joy, Mari commanded her Evangelion to shift its weight about, causing it to turn upside down and twist about wildly as it arced through the air, its four legs spinning around and around like some kind of crazy propeller.

The Angel didn't move. It merely looked up, observing its enemy, and looking about as stunned as a monstrosity with no real face possibly could.

Then Unit Five reached the apex of its flight. For one second in which the world seemed to be holding its breath, the multi-ton war machine just hung suspended in the air.

Then it began to come down. Mari immediately managed to turn it right side up again so that it would fall feet first—or, more accurately, wheels first.

"COWABUNGA!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as the enormous Evangelion plunged to earth, fully in gravity's thrall.

It landed, exactly as Mari had planned, right on top of the Angel. The great beast, which had previously been hovering a few hundred feet off the dusty ground, was abruptly slammed into the earth along with Unit Five. Each of the Evangelion's feet threw up a dust cloud as high as any building on the base, and the impact caused the ground to rumble so hard that small tremors could be felt by the inmates in Iron Highs Prison, twenty miles away.

The Angel seemed understandably dazed by Mari's opening attack, and it was trapped beneath Unit Five's weight, the Provisional Evangelion's four legs trapping it like the bars of a cage.

"That was _awesome!_ So much better than the combat sims! I could really feel the G's!" Mari exclaimed. "I've lived my entire life for this moment!"

"You _just_ told me you wouldn't take any unnecessary risks!" Jessie shrieked, her communications window popping up on Mari's visor again.

"Yes. I think it would be a _very_ unnecessary risk for me not to make use of the element of surprise," Mari replied.

This answer left Jessie sputtering in consternation.

Closing the communications link to her guardian, Mari activated her EVA's progressive lance. The huge melee weapon came to life with a joyous hum, causing the pilot to grin savagely.

"Now, Angel-face, let's play a game," Mari said. "It's called 'find the core!'"

With a loud, wordless battle cry, she plunged the weapon into the Angel's hide, punching right through the quasi-exoskeleton the main body was covered with. Huge spurts of dark blue blood spurted out from the wound, and the Angel roared in pain.

"Hmm, not there!" Mari said, withdrawing the lance from the Angel's flesh. "How about…over _here?_" she asked, stabbing into her enemy again and setting off another geyser of blood.

"Nope, not there, either!" Mari said. "Don't worry, Angel-face, I'm gonna turn you into Swiss cheese until I find it!"

This might have gone on until the Angel was reduced to a hole-ridden, bloody mess, except that the monstrosity wasn't willing to be defeated so easily. One of its long, spine-like arms moved, its motions producing a horrendous sound that was vaguely reminiscent to that of a joint popping. The bony, bird-like skull at the end pointed itself directly at Unit Five, and the eyes lit up with white light.

"Mari!" Jessie exclaimed, reopening the communications link. "Look out!"

The EVA pilot turned to look at the Angel's grotesque arm a second too late. A blast of blinding light shot forth from the eyes of the ossified face, plowing straight into Unit Five.

The massive Provisional EVA Unit was too heavy for even that attack to render it airborne, but it did go bouncing across the empty Kansas plains, almost like a stone skipping over the surface of a pond. Mari let out a cry as she was thrown every which way inside the plug, and everyone inside the command center held their breath. If Unit Five didn't land upright, it would be nearly as helpless to get up again as a turtle on its back.

Finally, Unit Five came to a stop, and all four of its wheels were on the ground. Everyone inside the command center released a collective sigh of relief.

"Okay," Mari said, "the gloves are officially coming _off!_"

Its armored tires screeching and kicking up great clouds of brown dust, Unit Five surged forward. Its external speakers blared Mari's loud war cry across the plains as the EVA charged like a demon that had broken free from hell. The Angel, still bleeding heavily from the great puncture wounds its enemy had inflicted upon it, wasn't fast enough to evade the advancing behemoth.

Mari swung Unit Five's left arm, and the pincer claw at the end smashed right into the front of the Angel's main body with a tremendous, ringing _clang!_ The beast went reeling from the force of the blow.

But it must not have been hurting too much, because it immediately lashed out with one of its own arms in retaliation, the skull at the end of it slamming into Unit Five's head hard enough to shatter some of the armor over it and reveal part of its face.

It had its teeth bared. It was growling.

So was Mari. She struck the Angel with Unit Five's pincer hand again and again, and the Angel retaliated with blows of its own. For several seconds, the two titans pummeled each other in this fashion, both of them rapidly becoming battered and damaged beneath the constant, withering assaults.

Then Hutchinson's face popped up on Mari's visor. "Pilot Makinami! The base computer has finally managed to locate the core!" he said. "We're sending you the data now!"

The communications window winked out, replaced by a wire frame image of the Angel, with the core shown as a red sphere. Mari's eyes widened as she saw its position. It wasn't in the main body at all. Instead, it was inside the skull thing at the end of the Angel's left arm.

_No wonder I couldn't get at it by stabbing the—!_

Her thought was cut off as the Angel, capitalizing on her moment of distraction, wrapped its long, bony right arm around Unit Five's left arm like a snake encircling its prey and then gave a fierce pull.

The Provisional Evangelion's two right wheels left the ground as the immense war machine tilted dangerously to the left.

"Crap," Mari hissed softly through gritted teeth, desperately commanding her EVA to shift its weight to the right in an effort to get out of the precarious position the Angel had put it in.

For one very pregnant moment, the Evangelion's motion came to a complete halt, and it just hung in its awkward, half knocked down position.

Then the Angel smacked the EVA with its free arm, causing it to abruptly complete its journey to the ground. The earth shook again as the Evangelion crashed down to it on its side, its four legs now awkwardly splayed out in the air. Mari grimaced as she shared the pain that was blossoming in her EVA's non-mechanical shoulder, and she knew that the arm with the pincer had been thoroughly crushed and mangled beneath the Provisional Evangelion's weight.

The Angel wasted no time capitalizing on its latest victory. Though one of its arms was now pinned beneath the EVA, it began to rain blows down upon Unit Five with the other. The strikes severely dented the EVA's armor, even shattering it in some places. In those places, dark red began to pour out from wounds in the Evangelion's flesh. Mari couldn't stop a groan of pain from passing her lips, as it felt like someone was repeatedly striking her own side with a hammer.

The only blessing was that the Angel wasn't utilizing its energy attack again, and the EVA pilot had a suspicion it wasn't doing that only because it sensed its enemy had been rendered helpless it and wanted to make that enemy die slowly.

"Mari!" Jessie shouted, a communications window popping up on the pilot's visor. "Get out of there! Eject now!"

"No way!" Mari exclaimed. "I got this!"

"_What?!_" Jessie squawked incredulously.

"Sever the left arm!" Mari yelled.

"Are you insane?!" Jessie snapped. "That won't help anything, and part of the EVA's shoulder will be blown off with it! You'll feel that pain!"

"I know that!" Mari yelled. "Just do it!"

Jessie just stared at her, dumbstruck, but either Commander Wells gave the order or some enterprising technician took the initiative. Because a moment later, a small but powerful charge embedded inside Unit Five's left shoulder exploded, blowing it and the ruined mechanical arm clean off.

The pain from that was _incredible_, easily far worse than anything Mari had ever endured before. Only her training prevented her from bursting into tears, screaming, and frantically checking her own arm to make sure that it was still there, and had not been reduced to a bloody stump.

Which was a good thing, because, as she'd known, the window of opportunity this action created was only open for a split second. The explosion, occurring between the EVA's body and the Earth, propelled the smaller object, namely the EVA, away from itself. With a loud grunt of effort, Mari made Unit Five throw all its weight to the right, also leaning her own body to the side for good measure.

It was just enough. Unit Five's four wheels hit the ground with a loud crash, and the war machine was ready for action again.

The Angel seemed to recoil in shock, and Mari instantly took advantage of the moment her crazy maneuver had given her. Sending her battered Evangelion forward, she struck at the end of the Angel's arm with her progressive lance, the tip hitting the bird-like skull there dead on and pinning it solidly to the ground.

The great beast absolutely panicked in response to this, and it began to frantically hammer away at Unit Five with its free arm. Mari barely registered the blows, her entire being completely focused upon shattering the bird-skull thing and the red core inside it.

Cracks began to form in the remarkably tough bone of Mari's target. The Angel released a loud shriek of agony and rage.

A savage grin formed on the pilot's face.

Somehow collecting itself enough to attack with everything it had, the Angel pointed the bony face at the end of its free arm directly at Unit Five. The eyes lit up with a dangerous white light. The cracks in the Angel's other skull grew in size, and thin but intense shafts of light began to pour out.

"Mari!" Jessie exclaimed. "Look out! It's going to fire!"

"I know, but I have to get this!" Mari replied.

"Mari!" Jessie yelled.

Then the skull Unit Five was assaulting abruptly shattered, and the progressive lance was free to stab into the red core hidden inside, instantly piercing it.

The moment it was broken, the core exploded spectacularly, bathing Unit Five and much of the surrounding area in white flame and momentarily blinding the EVA pilot. Several of the buildings of Bethany base—none of which were occupied, thanks to one of the base's protocols, which dictated that all personnel be in the underground sections during an Angel attack—imploded beneath the force of the resulting shockwave, going from solid structures to mere piles of debris in the blink of an eye.

And then it was over, leaving the world almost preternaturally silent. Unit Five's battered and badly damaged form stood alone on the field of battle. The Angel's body had apparently been completely annihilated by the explosion.

Realizing that she was panting hard despite the way the LCL she was immersed in was oxygenating her blood directly, Mari leaned back in her command chair, her whole body going limp as the battle fury and adrenaline began to rapidly desert her.

A big, silly grin slowly spread over her face as she began to catch her breath. "That," she said softly to herself, "was more fun…than I ever…dared to hope…it would be."

* * *

A few minutes later, Unit Five was returned to its cage, allowing a distraught crew of technicians to survey the extensive damage.

"Sorry, guys," Mari said to them as she climbed out of her plug. "It looks like I got it pretty scratched up out there."

The leader of the group of techs just gave her a look, and Mari decided it might be a good idea to be somewhere else at the moment. However, as she headed to the door out of the cage, she ran into her guardian, who was clearly waiting for her.

"Hey, Jessie," Mari greeted, knowing that it was a bad idea to be smiling but unable to stop herself.

"Commander Wells wants a word with you, so report to his office as soon as you've showered and changed," Jessie said. "I'll be wanting to speak with you after he's done."

_Back to back lectures,_ Mari thought, knowing she was going to be hearing about her lack of caution for the next hour, at least.

Well, fine, she could live with that. With the way she was feeling, it was impossible to dampen her spirits at the moment, anyway. And she could always defend herself by saying she hadn't technically disobeyed an order—her definition of terms like "careful" and "unnecessary risks" were just a little different. Besides, she knew there was no chance that they'd discharge her from NERV, not now that she was a member of a very small, very elite group: veteran Angel killers.

"Got it," Mari said, then began to head for the locker room. However, she slowed and the stopped after only a few steps. "By the way, whatever happened to that Special Inspector? I don't think he was done with me."

"Kaji?" Jessie asked with a small frown. "He hopped onto a plane and flew out of here before the battle even started."

"Huh," Mari grunted, a little surprised by that. Then she shrugged. "Guess that means his inspection is over."

* * *

Days passed, and the appearance of an Angel on American soil caused quite a lot of debates and arguments to break out amongst the upper echelons of the US military and the American NERV branches. They had all been quite content to let the war against the Angels unfold entirely in Japan, which had been the plan all along, and it understandably disturbed the nation that an Angel had attacked Kansas. The fact that only Tokyo-3 was truly equipped to support the Evangelions as they fought the Angels didn't help anyone's peace of mind.

Ideas and suggestions were thrown about by various individuals. Some proposed to turn every major city in America into fortresses to rival Tokyo-3, ignoring the obscene cost such a project would incur. On the opposite end of the spectrum, others advocated immediately either dismantling all the American-made Evangelions or shipping them to Japan—despite the fact that Units Three and Four weren't finished yet—and then for the USA to pull out of NERV's endeavors entirely. These ideas, as well as every one that could possibly be between them, were discussed at great length.

Mari, who loathed politics almost as much as she loathed history, paid no attention to any of it. Indeed, she had very little to do with NERV at all in the days immediately following her battle against the first Angel to strike US soil; Jessie had grounded her for three days, and Wells had banned her from doing combat sims for a week.

Then, the day after her punishment from Jessie was over, she was unexpectedly summoned to Commander Wells office. She and her guardian at once made their way to the base and then the old soldier's office.

"Enter," Wells said gruffly after Jessie knocked.

Opening the door, they walked into Wells' sizable office, which looked almost exactly the way one would expect a highly decorated officer's personal workspace to appear. It was fairly plain, and the only embellishments were of a martial nature, such as the antique, Civil War-era pistols that were displayed on one of the walls. The Commander also made a point of making sure his office was always kept meticulously neat and orderly.

Seeing them come inside, Wells took the papers he'd been writing on and put them inside one of his desk drawers.

"You asked to see me, sir?" Mari asked.

"Yes," Wells said. "You and Quinn have a seat."

The two of them obediently sat down in a pair of guest chairs in the Commander's office and waited for the man to speak.

"The Joint Chiefs of Staff have reached something resembling a consensus on the matter of the attack here," Wells said. "They are of the belief that the Angel attacked Bethany Base because it was drawn to Unit Five somehow."

Mari and Jessie exchanged a brief look. They supposed it was possible; the Angels had only attacked Tokyo-3 in the past, which had more Evangelions than any other location. All the other NERV bases scattered across the world only had one Evangelion apiece, if that, and most of those were half built.

And yet somehow, it didn't feel quite right to either of them.

"So what does that mean for us, sir?" Jessie asked tentatively.

"It means that the Joint Chiefs want Unit Five out of our country, and we've received orders to ship it, and its pilot, to Japan. _After_ repairs to it are completed," he added upon seeing Mari's face light up. "Which should be some time, considering how much damage it took during the battle."

"I see," Jessie said. "So that's why you called us in here, sir? To tell us we'll be shipping out once Unit Five is battle ready again?"

"That's not the whole reason," Wells grumbled, not looking the least bit pleased. "I have a task for you, Pilot Makinami."

"What is it, sir?" Mari asked.

"When you're in NERV Central, I want you to observe your surroundings and report back to me about them," Wells said.

Jessie frowned. "Sir, are you asking Mari to be your spy in Tokyo-3?"

"In a sense," Wells answered.

"With all due respect, sir, Mari has more than enough responsibilities to deal with already without having to be a spy, too," the lieutenant protested. "Don't we have intelligence agencies for this sort of thing?"

With a sigh, Wells rose from his chair and began to pace about his office, obviously not the least bit happy with what he was asking Mari to do, but also unwilling to rescind the command.

"Of course we have agencies for this sort of thing," he said. "The problem is, they're coming up with jack-shi…squat."

Mari smirked slightly at the man's obvious censoring of himself, as though she didn't regularly hear far worse profanities in school from her fellow students.

"How can that be, sir?" Jessie asked.

"Because, none of them are talking to each other enough. CIA barely ever communicates with the NSA, NSA doesn't talk to the military's intelligence agencies, and so on," Wells said disgustedly.

"Aren't there protocols in place to ensure that the various intelligence agencies keep one another informed?" Jessie asked.

"There were," Wells said darkly.

"Sir?" Mari asked curiously.

"Have you ever heard of Arthur Boone?" Wells replied.

"Isn't he the American representative on the Human Instrumentality Committee?" Jessie asked.

"That's right," Wells nodded. "And the Instrumentality Committee is the body that authorizes most of NERV's funding. I have friends in various places in Washington who tell me—all off the record, of course—that Boone used his connections to get those protocols removed, and to stir up excessive inter-agency rivalry amongst the various players involved in our nation's intelligence gathering. He screwed up the whole intelligence process, basically. Everybody might have a piece of the puzzle, but they can never get them all together in one place."

"So where exactly do I come in?" Mari asked.

"As a pilot, NERV Central has no choice but to allow you a considerable level of access once you get to Tokyo-3," Wells said. "And as someone not part of a traditional intelligence gathering organization, you won't be stuck in the bureaucratic nightmare Boone's created to keep us blind."

"Sir, please," Jessie spoke up, "if you really feel you need to have someone in NERV Central sending you information, let me be that person."

Wells shook his head. "Negative, Lieutenant Quinn. You're not an EVA pilot. Ikari won't have any trouble keeping _you_ from observing anything important."

"But sir, we already force Mari to take far too many risks for a teenage girl," Jessie protested. "To ask this of her too just isn't right."

"I'm not asking her to go crawling through the air ducts in NERV Central or to rappel down into Terminal Dogma or anything," Wells said. "For now, all I want is for her to keep her eyes and ears open while she's there and report back to me."

"And what if Ikari finds out Mari's doing that?" Jessie asked. "You know what they say about Tokyo-3."

"That you can't break wind there without Ikari finding out about it eventually," Wells scowled. "I don't believe that, Lieutenant. It's just people turning my counterpart in Tokyo-3 into some kind of boogeyman."

"Okay, well, you have to admit that Mari's not exactly…well-suited for intelligence gathering, sir," Jessie said. "For all her good qualities, she's about as subtle as a bolt of lightning."

Mari smirked. Neither Wells nor Jessie noticed.

"Which is why it will be _your_ job to keep her from getting too gung ho about this," Wells replied. "Keep all that energy channeled into EVA piloting, not trying to be Jane Bond or something."

"Yes, sir," Jessie said, finally defeated.

"That is, however, only if Pilot Makinami agrees," Wells added.

"Sir?" Mari asked.

"Lieutenant Quinn is correct about at least one thing, Pilot," Wells said. "We do ask too much of you. Therefore, I will not _order_ you to do this. You can turned down this task if you wish."

"I'll do it," Mari said at once.

Unlike the two adults in the room with her, Mari had never felt like she was carrying such a huge burden. Indeed, if not for the long, boring sync tests she had to regularly endure, she would have felt like she should be paying _NERV_, rather than the other way around.

"Good," Wells said, nodding. "Remember, no doing anything crazy. Just report back on anything unusual you see or hear. Oh, and I want you to pay special attention to Shinji Ikari."

"The Third Child? Why?" Mari asked.

Wells turned to stare at a large, framed painting of the _Monitor_ and the _Merrimack _pummeling each other with cannon fire that hung on one of the walls in his office. "You heard of what he accomplished during the First Battle of Tokyo-3, correct?"

"Who in NERV hasn't?" Mari asked. "They stuffed him into the plug for the first time ever because Ayanami wasn't able to pilot, and he managed to achieve a forty percent sync ratio and defeat the Angel."

"That's their story, anyway," Wells said darkly.

"You believe there's more to it?" Jessie asked.

"Considering that Soryu, Ayanami, and Makinami all needed months of training before any of them could produce so much as a blip on the synchronograph? Yes, I absolutely do," Wells said. "I don't believe for a second that the day the Third Angel attacked was the first time that boy ever saw the inside of an entry plug."

"You think Commander Ikari had his son secretly trained to pilot EVA? Why would NERV Central do that?" Mari asked.

"I don't think the relationship between Gendo and his son is as bad as we've been led to believe," Wells said. "I suspect Ikari is trying to create a force of EVA pilots loyal to him above any other authority."

Mari's eyes widened slightly at the idea. She didn't think Asuka would ever follow Commander Ikari's orders over those of, say, the UN Secretary General, but it was well known throughout all of NERV that Ayanami was Commander Ikari's pet pilot. If Gendo Ikari somehow gained exclusive control the world's Evangelions, it would be seriously bad, to say the least. He couldn't actually hope to conquer the world with them—Evangelions required far too much support for any campaign of that nature to ever succeed—but he could cause a hell of a lot of chaos and destruction. Probably blackmail the UN into giving him quite a lot.

_Hell, he might be able to make himself the new Emperor of Japan or something, if he played it right,_ Mari thought.

Then there was the issue that, if Ikari wanted to ensure that no one could stand against his Evangelions, he'd have to bump off all the pilots who weren't absolutely loyal to him, which included Mari.

"Do you really think Gendo Ikari would ever do such a thing, sir?" Jessie asked.

"I can't say with confidence that he wouldn't, Lieutenant, and that's enough to worry me," Well said. "You have to understand, NERV Central is different from us here at Bethany Base. For all we're technically under the UN's command, we report to the Pentagon like any other branch of the US military, and every soldier here is loyal to America. NERV Central never talks to the Japanese military command structure unless they have to, and they shut their government out as much as possible. They get away with it because of how essential they are to the war effort, and because the Committee pulls strings. I don't have any faith that a group that operates in such a fashion won't turn rogue someday."

Silence reigned in the office, as neither Mari nor Jessie had a reply to that.

"I'm guessing you see now why I want eyes and ears inside of NERV Central so badly," Wells said after giving the two ladies a moment to digest all the information he'd given them.

"Yes, sir," Mari nodded. "I'll definitely let you know if I observe anything suspicious."

"Good," Wells said, "but _don't_ do anything risky or foolish to get at information. The last thing anyone needs is for you to give Ikari a good excuse to throw you into a cell."

"Yes, sir," Mari said obediently.

Wells nodded. "In that case, you're dismissed," he said. "You return to your normal training schedule first thing on Monday. Until then, just take it easy and try and relax, Pilot. You're going to be very busy once we ship you to Japan."

"Understood, sir," Mari said.

* * *

Jessie wasn't happy that Mari had accepted the Commander's request to more or less spy on NERV Central. The pilot could tell that much by her guardian's silence as they drove home across the plains. Jessie still hadn't quite managed to get over her fear for Mari during the Angel battle, and adding this didn't do anything for her peace of mind.

Of course, Jessie couldn't very well chastise Mari for agreeing to do more to serve her country, so her guardian simply simmered in quiet and anger and fear.

Mari didn't try to broach the subject, knowing that there was little she could do to reassure Jessie. However, that caused the uncomfortable, unusual silence between them to stretch out for far too long.

So, all in all, Mari was very relieved when the phone rang the moment they stepped into their apartment.

"Hello?" the EVA pilot said, picking up the receiver.

"Hey, Mari, it's me," Denise's voice replied.

"Oh, hi, Denise," Mari said. "What's up?"

"_It's_ ready," her friend said in a voice that was two parts conspiratorial and three parts giddy.

"You mean…?"

"Yeah!" Denise said excitedly. "Look, my parents went out to a movie, so you can come over right now to try it on!"

"Sweet," Mari said. "I'll be right over."

Hanging up the phone, Mari turned to Jessie. "Denise invited to spend a couple of hours over at her place," she said.

"Have fun," her guardian replied.

More than a little relieved to escape the uncomfortable atmosphere, Mari quickly left the apartment building, soon emerging out on the street. She looked around, checking to see if anyone was watching her.

Then she kicked into speed mode and the world appeared to come to an abrupt stop, and Mari jogged to Denise's place at a leisurely pace. She was soon standing right behind her friend, who, to her perceptions, stood frozen by her phone.

Mari allowed herself to return to normal. "Hi, Denise!"

The other girl jumped, then whirled around, placing a hand over her chest. "Geeze, Mari, don't _do_ that!" she exclaimed.

"Sorry, couldn't resist," Mari replied with an impish grin. "Besides, I did say I'd be right over."

"Yeah, I guess you did," Denise grumbled.

"Okay, so, I'm here. Don't hold out on me now, Denise," Mari said eagerly. "Where is it?"

Smiling, her irritation at her friend suddenly forgotten, Denise reached into her pocket and withdrew one of the costume rings. "Here you go," she said.

Mari accepted the ring, grinning from ear to ear. "Let's try this again," she said, and pressed the little stud to open the hidden compartment.

Instantly, the costume popped out of the ring and started to grow in size. Kicking into speed mode again, Mari donned the red and gold outfit faster than a normal human could see. In a fraction of a second, she was fully clad in the costume Denise had obtained for her.

"Well," Mari said, clenching and unclenching her hands as she allowed her perceptions to return to normal, "it fits a hell of a lot better than the old one did, that's for sure. How do I look, Denise?"

"You look perfect," Denise said in a soft, almost awed tone. "The Flash is reborn."

Smiling, Mari walked to a nearby hallway where she knew a mirror was hung. She let out a low whistle as she saw her reflection.

Overall, the design of the costume hadn't been changed much from Barry Allen's. It was still mostly red with the familiar lightning bolt emblem on the chest. The boots were bright gold, as were the lightning bolt designs that looped around her waist and each of her forearms. The wing-fins were even still there.

However, the costume was a perfect fit, which by itself made a huge difference. The top of the cowl had been removed, allowing Mari's long hair to hang freely, and blue-tinted lenses were situated over the eye holes in the mask. The lenses must've been prescription, because Mari could see perfectly even though she wasn't wearing her glasses.

"It fits my bust perfectly," Mari observed with a grin, mostly to see her friend's reaction.

Denise palmed her forehead. "Are you _ever_ going to stop marveling over how much bigger your boobs got after you accelerated your growth?" she grumbled.

"Maybe," Mari replied.

Denise sighed. "Anyway," she said, clearly eager to change the subject, "the whole costume's very resistant to heat and friction. Also, each of your wing-fins has a small device inside it. You just have to push the button hidden on the bottom to turn them on. The right one has a police scanner in it, and the other one has a two way transmitter, which connects to this."

She held up a headset she was carrying. Mari quirked an eyebrow.

"In case you ever need a little advice from your friend, the expert on the Flash," Denise explained.

"Okay," Mari said, "cool."

There was a brief moment of silence.

"All right, so you're suited up, and you know how to use your powers. Now go be the Flash," Denise said, waving a hand in a shooing motion. "Right wrongs and save some people and stuff. I want to tell Uncle Dexter that there's a new Flash in town."

"Um, yeah, about that," Mari began awkwardly, scratching the back of her head. "I don't think it's a good idea for me to debut quite yet."

"What? Why not?" Denise asked, distraught.

"I just found out today that I'm going to be heading to Japan as soon as Unit Five's repaired," Mari said. "If the Flash shows up here, then starts showing up in Tokyo-3 so soon after debuting, at the same time _I_ got there, somebody will put the pieces together."

"So you're not going to be the Flash until you go to Tokyo-3?" Denise asked.

"That's the plan, yeah," Mari said. "Sorry, Denise."

"But you _have_ to start in Keystone!" Denise pleaded. "It's the Flash's home!"

"Yeah, it _is_ my home," Mari agreed. "And the fact that I'll be starting my superhero career on the other side of the Pacific doesn't change that. You're gonna have to be content with you knowing that I'm as tied to Keystone as Jay Garrick or Barry Allen, even if nobody else does."

Denise was silent for a long moment, and Mari was suddenly afraid that this would drive a wedge between her and her best friend. For the first time, she found herself wondering if it might not have been better if she'd never gotten shocked during Hutchinson's experiment.

"So you're going to be leaving for Tokyo-3 soon?" Denise asked.

Mari nodded. "Yeah, as soon as Unit Five is all fixed up," she said. "That'll take a couple of weeks, or a couple of months, at most."

"In that case, we should definitely hang out together while we still can," Denise proclaimed, giving her a friend a smile that said she still wasn't happy about Mari's decision to delay being the new Flash, but that she wouldn't hold it against her. "What do you say you change back to your normal clothes and we go get some ice cream or something?"

"I say that's a great idea," Mari replied. "I could really go for a snack right about now."

Denise just shook her head. "Really? What a shock."

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I have to say, I am really enjoying the hell out of writing this one. Mari's very quirky personality (Flash fans will notice that she's definitely got a bit of Impulse in her) is a ton of fun to write, and it doesn't hurt that the Flash is my favorite superhero after Green Lantern.

Anyway, to the actual notes. For those of you who were wondering, the Angel that Mari fought here was from Rebuild. My description of it might be a bit off, because that battle was short and mostly conducted in the dark, but it should be close enough. I admit I'm probably going to be lazy and find some excuse not to number it, thus keeping the numbers of all the original Angels the same.

Originally, I had planned to have Denise make Mari's costume herself, but after thinking about it I realized that was impractical, regardless of how smart Denise is. Where's the fourteen year old supposed to get all the special materials necessary to make a costume for the Flash? So I figured I could make use of the Crime Tailor, who, despite the name, actually made costumes for the Justice League of Europe once, so he is apparently not against working for the good guys, too.

By the way, my take on the "Mari the spy" bit was pretty toned down from what's probably the truth of it. Orionpax09's take on it in _American Dream_ is almost certainly more accurate, but I really _don't_ think Mari would make a very good spy (in Rebuild 2.0, she happens to land on Shinji after entering Japan by parachute, then she tells him not to tell NERV about her, as if her entrance wasn't already suspicious enough).

**Quathis**, on the issue of my choice of Wells and Vreeland for the Commanders of Mari's base, I picked them mostly because they were the only two generals from the DCAU that I remember not being complete jerks. Wells was a distrustful guy, but he was always right, so he didn't look like a dick for it, plus that works for this fic.

With Mari "filling the Flash's shoes" one thing you should keep in mind is that Denise is more invested in seeing Mari being the third Flash than Mari herself is. Mari's going along with it mostly because it sounds like fun to her, so she's not going to be that concerned with trying to emulate Barry. That said, I do intend to try and have her have some of the traits that help seperate the Flash from his fellow heroes, but bear in mind that I grew up with Wally being the Flash, and I'm already mixing his history with Barry's a bit.

Oh, and while I think Kensuke and Denise would make a pretty good pair, they're going to have the Pacific Ocean between them, so no go there.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

* * *

Omake

Alternate Costume

"Okay, so, I'm here. Don't hold out on me now, Denise," Mari said eagerly. "Where is it?"

Smiling, her irritation at her friend suddenly forgotten, Denise reached into her pocket and withdrew one of the costume rings. "Here you go," she said.

Mari accepted the ring, grinning from ear to ear. "Let's try this again," she said, and pressed the little stud to open the hidden compartment.

Instantly, the costume popped out of the ring and started to grow in size. Kicking into speed mode again, Mari donned the outfit faster than a normal human could see. In a fraction of a second, she was fully clad in the costume Denise had obtained for her.

"Denise!" Mari exclaimed as she left speed mode. "What the hell?!"

"Uhh…" was the most articulate reply her friend could immediately come up with as she looked at Mari.

The speedster was clad in a baggy clown suit, complete with oversized shoes and a red rubber nose.

"Denise!" Mari hissed again.

The other girl finally was knocked out of her reverie. "Damn it! Gambi screwed me!"

* * *

Across the river in Central City, Paul Gambi whistled a cheerful little tune to himself as he counted the day's earnings. "I can't believe that girl didn't even check the costume I made her after she paid me three hundred bucks for it," he mused aloud.

* * *

"Oh, well this is just wonderful," Mari huffed, crossing her arms. "I can't go be a superhero in _this_!"

"Sorry, sorry," Denise apologized. "We'll figure something else out."

"I _hope_ so," Mari said.

A moment of silence passed.

"Hey, Mari, can I ask you something?" Denise asked.

Mari sighed. "Sure, I guess so."

"Why did you put on the _nose_?"

* * *

Seeking a New Tailor

"This had better be worth it," Denise grumbled to herself as she disembarked from a bus, checking a new map she had printed from Google. "Mari will never stop bringing up the clown suit thing unless I manage to get her a real Flash costume."

A short walk brought her to the address she sought, but Denise didn't immediately proceed. Instead, she just took a second to gape at the place.

The home was the literal house on a hill, except calling it a "house" was far too modest. It was a mansion at the least, but Denise wouldn't have hesitated to call it a palace, either. The property had to be at least a full acre in size.

And the entire thing was walled. Denise stood in front of a gate, which, instead of being constructed from metal like most normal gates, was composed of multiple red laser beams that hummed menacingly. As the teenage girl watched, a fly buzzed by and flew into one of the beams.

Where it was incinerated instantly.

"What have I gotten myself into?" Denise wondered aloud.

Well, there was no turning back now. She reached out to the intercom located next to the deadly laser gate and pushed the sole button she found there.

"Who is it?" a deep male voice asked.

"Um, my name is Denise Myles," she answered. "I have an appointment."

"Yes, you're expected," the voice replied. "Come inside."

The laser beams suddenly winked out, allowing Denise entrance. The moment she walked past the gate, the lasers came back, which didn't exactly fill her with warm and fuzzy feelings.

The walk from the front gate to the mansion took her almost ten minutes, but when she got there, she found the lady of the house waiting for her.

The black haired woman was, to put it bluntly, not very attractive. But, more noticeably, she was short. Really short. Denise wasn't tall for her age, and this woman barely came up to her chest.

"Hello, darling," the woman said. "It's nice to have a visitor, even one I haven't had the pleasure of meeting before and do not know what she wants."

"Oh, well, you see—" Denise began.

"But please, we shouldn't talk business out here in this heat!" the woman said. "Come inside, darling, and then we can get down to brass tacks."

"Oh, okay," Denise replied, following the woman inside.

The interior of the mansion was, if possible, even more opulent than the exterior. All the furniture was ultra-modern and clearly very expensive. A grand piano stood in the parlor, and, to Denise's amazement, an artificial waterfall flowed down from the second floor to the first.

"Wow," she commented.

"Oh, do you like it?" the woman asked. "Yes, I have to admit that I, too, have always enjoyed my humble home. It is the sanctuary from which I can channel my inspiration and create without restrictions."

"Humble" was about the last word Denise would have used to describe the place, but she didn't think it would be tactful to say as much.

"It's extremely lovely," she said instead. "I had no idea that being a fashion designer could pay so much, but I guess you make more than average. I heard how popular your work was at that show in Paris."

"Pah!" the woman spat. "Little scraps of fabric for stick figures to strut down the catwalk in! I suppose it pays the bills, but it doesn't enflame my passion!"

"Then what—?"

"I used to design for gods, darling!" the woman continued. "Gods who walked among men, but that was back during the 'Golden Age.' There are no more gods in today's world. None like them, anyway."

"Funny you should say that—"

"But I've talked about me too much!" the woman said, whirling about to face Denise. "What have you come here for, darling? If you're hoping for an internship of some kind, I'm afraid that taking on an apprentice is quite out of the question."

"Oh, no, that's not why I'm here," Denise said, withdrawing a new sketch of the planned costume and handing it over. "I need you to make that."

The woman studied the sketch for a moment. "This isn't for you," she said, looking at Denise's chest far more pointedly than Paul Gambi had.

"Of course not!" Denise said hotly, crossing her arms over her chest. "You think she'd come here herself?"

"No need to shout, darling," the woman chastised her.

"Sorry," Denise said, "but will you do it?"

"Oh, yes, darling, it would be my pleasure," she said, grinning.

"Thank you, Miss Mode."

"Oh please, darling, call me Edna."

(A/N: I also don't own _The Incredibles_.)


	4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Three: **Red Tape and the Scarlet Speedster

"Now _that_ is one damn big plane," Jessie observed.

"Now _that_ is one damn big understatement," Mari quipped, craning her neck in a futile attempt to see the top of the gargantuan aircraft that was currently at rest on Bethany Base's airstrip.

The entire place had been cleared of any other aircraft for the first time ever to the best of the EVA pilot's knowledge, but it still looked far too small for the plane that was currently parked there.

Which wasn't that much of a surprise, considering that Evangelion transport planes were the largest class of aircraft ever built by the hands of man. The enormous plane, which looked like one big, sleek wing, had a wingspan greater than that of three jumbo jets put together and could carry a standard Evangelion inside its specially-designed cargo hold.

Of course, Mari's Unit Five wasn't exactly a standard Evangelion. To prepare it for air travel, the American NERV branch had built an enormous metal box around it, with clamps that the transport could easily latch onto at the top. The complicated operation of attaching the plane to the massive container was already completed, and the transport was sitting atop the huge box, the additional height allowing it to cast its shadow across the entire base. Wheels on the bottom of the super-sized cargo container would allow the thing to roll across the runway for takeoff, and the engineers swore that they would serve as adequate landing gear at least once, although Jessie and Mari were both privately dubious of that claim.

It had been a long time coming—far too long in Mari's opinion—but after months of work, Unit Five was finally repaired, meaning it was at last time for the American EVA pilot to ship out.

"That container is going to cause a whole lot of drag," Mari commented as she watched the various technicians crawling over the assembly, performing last minute checks and looking like ants in comparison to what they were working on.

Jessie nodded. "This is going to be the most expensive flight across the Pacific in well…ever," she said. "I heard that the cost of fuel for this one trip is going to far exceed ten million dollars."

Mari responded with a low whistle.

"They would've sent Unit Five by ship, if not for what happened to Unit Two," Jessie said.

The bespectacled girl grimaced slightly. An Angel had struck the UN fleet that was transporting Unit Two to Japan, and NERV had been forced to engage an Angel at sea with an Evangelion not equipped for underwater combat.

Mari burned with jealousy whenever she thought of the epic battle she had missed.

"Well, I'm glad we're going by air instead of by sea," Mari said. "The sooner we get to Japan, the better."

Jessie smirked. "Don't want Asuka to rack up any more kills without you?"

Mari groaned. "She's already got three under her belt already! She's going to rub them in my face as soon as I see her, I just know it."

That and she had a bet going with the Second Child, made when they had met years ago. But she didn't really think it was a good idea to tell her guardian that.

"Knowing her, she probably will," Jessie said with a chortle.

Mari was about to make a reply when the approach of Commander Wells stilled her tongue. The pilot quickly shifted the bag she had slung over her shoulder slightly, and then snapped to a crisp salute as her guardian did the same.

With an unusual air of formality, the commander of Bethany Base returned the salute, and then relaxed. "At ease," Wells eventually said.

Jessie and Mari both relaxed.

"Well, Pilot, after years of training here, it looks like you'll finally be leaving us to head to the front lines," Wells said.

"Yes, sir," Mari agreed.

"I realize this is one hell of a burden for anyone to shoulder, let alone someone as young as you," Wells said. "I can only say that if I could, I would take your place behind the controls of that thing."

"Sir, I'd be dismayed if you did," Mari replied, her formal tone betrayed by the grin that was starting to curl the corners of her lips. "I consider my duty to be an honor and privilege."

The expression on Wells' face made it clear that _that_ probably concerned him more than anything else. "I trust I don't need to remind you about your _other_ assignment?"

"No, sir."

"Good. In that case, I wish you a safe voyage, and that you may come back home unscathed someday. Show them how it's done, Pilot Makinami," Wells said. He looked ready to leave, then hesitated and added, "And please, try not to level Tokyo-3 while you're there."

Finally, Mari could hold herself back no longer. "A giant mecha destroying Tokyo, sir? _Preposterous,_" she proclaimed.

Behind the pilot, Jessie palmed her forehead.

"Ahem, yes," Wells cleared his throat. "Well, in any event, I have things to see to. Good day, Pilot. Lieutenant." He nodded to Jessie.

"Good day, sir," Jessie said.

Once the man was away, her guardian turned to glare at her. "You just had to do that, didn't you?"

"What?" Mari asked innocently, as though she had not a clue what Jessie was referring to.

"Never mind," Jessie sighed. "Come on, let's see if we can board yet."

The two of them approached the huge form of the transport, and they were indeed allowed to get onto the plane. Mari had suspected that they might have to get on with the aid of a very long rope ladder, but as it turned out, they were able to board via the container holding her Unit Five. There was a passageway that went straight from it to the plane, which they reached with the aid of a long series of stairways and catwalks inside the great metal box. The EVA pilot's opinion of the engineers who had designed the container went up a few notches.

"Up, up and away, in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon," Mari sang softly as she and Jessie navigated their way upwards toward the plane.

"You know we're not in a balloon, right?" Jessie asked.

"Come fly with me, let's fly away," Mari immediately switched songs. "Come fly with me, let's fly away!"

"You don't know any of the other lyrics to that song, do you?" Jessie asked with a smirk.

"Hell, no!" Mari retorted. "Who did that song? Sinatra? When's the last time Sinatra was on the radio, or the theme song for a TV was by him?"

Jessie just shook her head. Then she noticed something glimmering on her charge's finger. "Hey, where did you get that?" she asked.

"This?" Mari asked, looking down at the ring she was wearing. "Oh, it's just a… going away present from Denise."

Jessie nodded. "Did you two have fun the other night?"

"Eh, not exactly," Mari said with a sigh. "We were both too bummed out about not getting to see each other for who knows how long."

That, and Denise had been appalled when Mari had shared her plans to say good-bye to the Johnson Memorial Private School for Bright Youths by painting every inch of the entire building—both interior and exterior—neon pink in the course of one night.

Apparently, the use of super speed for epic pranks was a no-no for a hero like the Flash.

"You worried about her?" Jessie asked gently.

"Yeah," Mari said with a soft sigh. "She's my best friend, but she's never exactly been a warrior. Without me around…"

"She seems to have grown up a lot since the days you defended her from bullies," Jessie said. "I think she'll be fine."

"Here's hoping," Mari said.

The two of them finally reached the actual plane at this point and quickly stowed the few bags they were carrying with them. Most of their stuff was being transported by ship to Japan, so they'd practically be living out of backpacks for a little while.

Like any military transport, the inside of the enormous plane wasn't exactly luxurious or pretty. Indeed, they'd be spending the flight in what was essentially a cargo hold with a few seats in it.

"Bet we don't even get free bags of peanuts on this flight," Mari commented, hiding genuine regret beneath humor.

Her appetite hadn't diminished one iota since the accident that gave her super-speed, but since Mari's illusion of a growth spurt had finally come to an end (with her gleefully burning those hated Ace bandages she had had wrapped around her chest once she was done with them), Denise had advised her to try not to eat so much in front of her guardian. It would look strange, after all, if she continued to be so ravenous after her "growth spurt" had ended. It was sensible advice, but it sometimes left Mari with her stomach growling.

"We'll be lucky to get a K-ration," Jessie said. "Strap in. I want to go talk to the pilot."

Not much later, the plane finally took off, its enormous engines powering its bulk into the sky.

And then the real test of Jessie Quinn began: surviving a nonstop flight from Kansas to Japan with her easily bored charge.

* * *

"I spy, with my little eye, something that begins with the letter 'c,'" Mari said as she peered out the window.

"Clouds," Jessie said, not looking up from the book she was reading.

"Right!" Mari said. "Okay, I spy, with my little eye, something… white."

"Clouds," Jessie said.

"That's right!" Mari exclaimed. "Okay, I spy, with my little eye, something—"

"Still clouds," Jessie interrupted.

"Wow, you're good at this!" Mari said, her voice full of faux awe.

"Mari," Jessie groaned, finally looking up from the paperback novel she'd had her nose buried in, "why don't you read a book, or play on your Gameboy or something?"

"I don't have a book, and I didn't bring my Gameboy with me. It's on the ship with the rest of our stuff," Mari said.

"Oh," Jessie said. "Damn. Well, just try and keep yourself occupied somehow. Quietly."

"Okay," Mari said.

The lieutenant turned her attention back to her book.

"Jessie?" Mari said after a moment,

Jessie visibly held back a sigh. "What?"

"Are we there yet?"

"We still have over ten hours to go."

"Oh."

Jessie turned back to her book. For a few minutes, nothing was heard besides the dull roar of the engines in the background.

"Jessie?"

"What?" the lieutenant asked sharply.

"Are we there _yet_?"

"No!"

"Oh," Mari said mildly. "Okay."

Silence returned to the inside of their little section of the huge plane. Jessie drew a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. She could feel herself relaxing, releasing the tension that the pilot's antics had created. She engrossed herself in her novel again.

"Jessie?"

"_What?_" the lieutenant barked.

"Do you think there's any chance that somebody filled the whole plane with poisonous snakes like in that one movie?" Mari asked, unperturbed by the vein that was visibly pulsing above her guardian's left eye.

Jessie smacked her forehead and released a gusty sigh. _I didn't want to resort to this so soon, but…_

She grabbed a water bottle while digging into her pocket with her other hand, withdrawing a small white pill. "Want an Ambien?" she offered.

_Worked like a charm,_ Mari though, eagerly accepting the offered tablet.

"Better living through chemistry," the EVA pilot said before she swallowed the potent sedative.

* * *

Several hours later, Mari woke from the small nest of tarps she had built for herself atop a stack of wooden crates. After yawning and stretching hugely, she adjusted her glasses, which had been knocked askew during her slumber, and jumped nimbly down to the floor.

"Are we there _now_?" she asked.

"Almost," Jessie answered. "We've got about another hour to go."

"Cool," Mari replied, still feeling a little drowsy from the powerful sleeping pill Jessie had given her. With another small yawn, she plopped down into her seat.

For about twenty minutes, all was quiet and peaceful.

Then the plane's intercom came on with a burst of static. "Lieutenant Quinn?" the pilot's disembodied voice filled their compartment. "Could you come up here, please?"

Jessie and Mari traded a look, then the lieutenant shrugged. "I'll be right back," she said.

Jessie headed over to the cockpit, leaving Mari alone. The bespectacled EVA pilot literally twiddled her thumbs for a few seconds, before she gave into temptation and picked up her guardian's precious paperback novel. With a smirk, she began to skim through it, soon snickering at some of the things she read.

"How can she read this gooey romantic crap?" Mari wondered aloud as she continued to glance at the words on the page. "I mean, really, every woman has a great, heaving bosom, and every guy has a huge, hard, throbbing…"

She trailed off, suddenly paying a great deal more attention to the book. She kicked into speed mode and read the entire novel in 3.7 seconds.

"Okay, admittedly parts of that were pretty hot, but it was still a corny, pulp romance story," she proclaimed, carelessly tossing the book away.

Mari read it ten more times before Jessie returned from the cockpit. Her guardian had an unreadable expression on her face, which instantly made the bespectacled girl wary.

"What's up?" she asked.

"The pilot couldn't make radio contact with NERV Central, and they didn't want to hail anyone else without my approval, considering that this is a top secret flight," Jessie said. "I called up the JSDF."

"I'm guessing that you didn't find out the NERV base here failed to answer because somebody spilled coffee all over a control panel," Mari said.

"You guess right," Jessie said. "The entire city is suffering a total power outage."

Mari frowned. "I thought that was impossible."

"It's supposed to be," Jessie said meaningfully.

"Oh," Mari said, comprehending instantly.

"And that's not the worst of it," Jessie said. "Apparently, the next Angel has just entered the city limits."

The EVA pilot's face lit up. "Then what are we waiting for?" she asked. "Give me a second to get into my plug suit and I'll head down to Unit Five!"

She was stopped by her guardian's hand on her shoulder. "It's not that simple, Mari," she said.

"Not that simple?" the pilot echoed incredulously. "There's an Angel bearing down on Tokyo-3, NERV Central's Evangelions probably can't even get out of their cages, and _we've_ got an EVA all ready to go. What's complicated about it?"

Jessie sighed. "We haven't officially been transferred to NERV Central yet. We're still technically under the American branch's command," she said.

"So?" Mari asked.

"So if we send you out in Unit Five right now, it would technically be America performing an unsanctioned military action on Japanese soil," Jessie said.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Mari exclaimed. "We'd be saving them! How could they possibly get mad over that?"

"What if you destroyed half of Tokyo-3 while you were fighting the Angel?" Jessie countered. "A lot of politicians here would find it _very_ easy to lob all the blame at the 'gaijin' from the US who engaged the Angel without authorization to attack."

"Then why can't we get permission to attack?" Mari asked.

"Unfortunately, in order to transfer you and Unit Five to being under the command of NERV Central, we need NERV Central to officially accept," Jessie said. "And they're incommunicado right now."

Her frustration threatening to overwhelm her, Mari grabbed hold of her twin tails and pulled. "You can't be serious!" she exclaimed. "We're going to let the Angel win because of _red tape_?"

"The JSDF is trying to find someone high enough in the chain to give the order for us to attack," Jessie said.

"And how likely do you think it is that _that_ will happen?" Mari asked, knowing bureaucrats, both of the military type and the civilian type, too well to think that any of them would risk owning a potential disaster.

Jessie didn't answer. "It's not my call, Mari," she said instead.

"If you told the pilot to jettison the container with Unit Five in it, he'd do it," Mari argued.

Jessie sighed. "You don't understand what it would mean to be at the center of an international incident, Mari," she said. "I won't let you get yourself into a nightmare like that."

"Ugh," Mari groaned, palming her forehead. "So what are we actually gonna do? If we can't land by Tokyo-3..."

"We've been ordered to just circle above the city until we recieve new orders," Jessie said helplessly.

"So we're just going to wait and do nothing while an Angel goes crazy down there?" Mari asked.

"We don't have any other choice."

"_Fine. _I'm going to go wait with Unit Five, on the off chance that some big shot bureaucrat over here pulls his head out of his ass long enough to give us the go ahead."

With that, she spun on her heel and headed toward the entrance to the cargo container that held Unit Five.

"Mari…" Jessie began, then trailed off, seemingly not knowing what to say.

Then the EVA pilot had left the plane, returning to the giant cargo container. Unsurprisingly, it was stifling inside; there were no atmospheric controls of any kind within the big metal box, which had been in the light of the sun all day. Beads of sweat popped up on Mari's brow almost instantly.

Well, that was fine. It wasn't as if she planned on waiting inside the container for very long.

"Sorry, big guy," she said to Unit Five as she passed the armored helmet of her Evangelion. "It looks like you'll have to sit this one out."

This act of courtesy completed, she began to look around the container, soon finding what she sought.

A parachute.

With this slung onto her back, she headed for the exit to the box.

Fortunately for her, the door into the container was just that, a door. It had no electronic locks on it that would only release when the container was earthbound. Opening it would set off no alarms inside the cockpit.

The container's designers had just assumed that nobody would be crazy enough to open the door while in mid-flight.

Clearly, said designers hadn't known Mari.

The pilot released the lock and then opened the door with one swift kick.

"I always wanted to do this!" she commented to herself over the roar of the rushing wind, her twin tails whipping about. "Never thought I'd get to do it until the war was over, though."

She checked her parachute one more time, just to make sure she was wearing it properly. Then she pinched her nose shut and jumped.

"GERONIMO!" she shouted as she began to plunge downwards, fully in gravity's thrall.

The utter freedom of uninhibited falling, the rush of wind around her, the way the world beneath her looked tiny but began to gain in size rapidly… all of it brought a smile of delight to the adrenaline junkie's face. Pleased laughter bubbled out of her, and she actually forgot all about pulling the ripcord.

Then she spotted it in the distance. The Angel.

It looked like a monstrous daddy longlegs, its multiple appendages towering over many of the skyscrapers in the city, which had noticeably _not_ been transformed into its wartime configuration. The ugly thing clomped through the city at a slow, unhurried pace, unimpeded by Tokyo-3's usual defenders.

Mari pulled the ripcord and her parachute opened, allowing her to drift gently downwards toward to the Earth. Her descent seemed to take forever, and all the while the Angel continued to walk through the city unchallenged.

Yet she did finally reach the ground, landing at the very edge of the city limits. The moment she had her feet on terra firma, Mari quickly shrugged off her parachute, then pressed the little button on the side of her ring.

Instantly, the top popped open and her costume burst out, starting to expand as it hit the air. Mari kicked into speed mode, changing into the bright red garment faster than the human eye could hope to perceive.

Less than a fraction of a second later, the new Scarlet Speedster was racing into Tokyo-3, bolts of golden lightning crackling over her form as she went.

* * *

Yasu Hayashi hadn't liked the idea of moving to Tokyo-3 when her husband Daiki had first proposed it. She had been quite fond of the home they'd had in Kyoto-2, and there had been rumors about the new, ultra-modern city even then. Rumors which had ranged from the merely unpleasant to the truly bizarre.

Yet her husband had been offered a very good job with a salary that far exceeded the one he'd been making at the time. It would have been just plain foolish for him to pass up such an opportunity, especially considering that they'd had a baby on the way at the time.

So they had moved to Tokyo-3, and against all of Yasu's expectations, she had come to love the place. It just felt so new and bright and full of hope and expectations.

She had become so attached to the city that she hadn't left when a tragic traffic accident had claimed Daiki's life, thus eliminating the whole reason for moving to Tokyo-3 in the first place.

Indeed, she had become _so_ attached to the city that she had stubbornly refused to leave when the Angels had started arriving, even though just about everyone who could had quickly relocated to Tokyo-2 or one of the other neighboring areas.

At the time she'd thought she was being brave, but she'd never really believed that she'd be anywhere during an Angel battle other than in a nice and safe shelter. After all, the city's early warning system would alert everyone in time to the approach of one of the monsters more than soon enough for everyone to get away.

She had never once considered the possibility that a blackout would render that system useless, and that she and her daughter Keiko would end up on the streets while an Angel rampaged through the city.

"Dive faster, Mommy!" the little girl screamed.

"I'm driving as fast as I can!" Yasu exclaimed, practically standing on the accelerator of her car.

Her vehicle, which was small and cute and fuel efficient but not very powerful, surged through the streets as quickly as it could, but the spidery Angel behind them covered an enormous amount of ground with each step of one of its many legs. She couldn't hope to stay ahead of it for long, and there wasn't any place in sight where she could turn and get out of the beast's path.

"Come on, come on," Yasu muttered under her breath. "Just a little further and we should—"

It was that moment when she saw him. A young man riding a bicycle, presumably someone who had heard the evacuation orders too late like she had, suddenly emerged from seemingly nowhere, shooting out right in front of her car.

Yasu slammed on the brake pedal with both feet. Her tires released a horrible screech which was almost, but not quite, drowned out by the ear piercing shriek of her young daughter. Yasu wasn't sure she'd ever hear properly again, but she didn't blame her little girl a bit; she would've been screaming, too, if not for the way she was clenching her teeth as she battled to keep her vehicle under control.

It was a battle she ultimately lost when she tried to turn away from the cyclist. She managed to miss him by the barest of margins, but the laws of physics would not be denied, and the car flipped over onto its side and began to skid along the street, throwing up a great shower of yellow sparks as it went.

Now that she was unable to do anything but hope they survived the ride, Yasu _did_ scream. She screamed at the top of her lungs, her shriek rivaling that of her daughter as their uncontrolled car rushed through the street, which was currently filled with other vehicles that people had hastily abandoned in their rush to get to safety.

And then they ground to a stop.

Yasu could barely believe that they'd come to a halt without hitting anything, yet they didn't seem to be dead. Regardless, she and Keiko were both panting heavily, their intense fear leaving them in the same state that a long sprint might have.

Yet as much as Yasu would have liked to just remain in the car until her heart stopped hammering so hard she feared it might burst out of her chest, she knew that time was of the essence.

After undoing her seatbelt, Yasu pushed the car door open. It took a lot more effort than normal, because she had to push the door straight up, but she managed to do it.

Once outside, she spared a moment for a brief glance at the Angel, and then wished she hadn't. It had drawn far too close to them for comfort.

Quickly opening the rear door, Yasu reached inside the car and pulled out her daughter.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Her little girl nodded weakly.

At this point, Yasu would have liked to do nothing more than to take Keiko's hand and run the hell away, but her conscience wouldn't allow her to just retreat like that. She set her daughter down on the street.

"Wait there for a minute," she told Keiko firmly. "Don't move."

Then Yasu quickly went around her car, finding the bike rider who had so unwisely decided to get into the way of her car. Even though she had managed to miss hitting him, he had fallen off his bicycle as a result of the near collision. He was still laying on the ground, his legs tangled up within the frame of his bike.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I think so, but I'm stuck," the young man grimaced. "I'm sorry."

Ignoring his apology for the moment, Yasu began to help him extricate himself from his bike. It looked like his pant's leg had gotten badly snagged on the chain. She reached down to try and unhook it.

Then a shadow fell over them, and Yasu saw the young man's face go pale with obvious terror. She heard Keiko scream, and she turned just in time to see her little girl fleeing in terror. It wasn't hard to figure out why; the Angel was right above them by this point, its massive body blocking out the sun and casting them in darkness.

"Keiko, stop!" Yasu shouted as loudly as she could.

But her daughter didn't stop, perhaps _couldn't_ stop. She just kept running, seemingly seized by an overwhelming need to get away from the Angel as fast as possible, by any means available to her.

Then she tripped, falling hard on the asphalt of the street.

"KEIKO!" Yasu cried.

The little girl immediately began to get up, turning herself over so she was in a sitting position. She might have gotten back to her feet and made good her escape, too, if she hadn't made the mistake of looking up.

Not only was the Angel looming over them, but one of its huge, spindly legs was positioned right above Keiko, and it was coming downwards. The beast probably wouldn't even realize it had stepped on anything.

Staring death in the face, the little girl froze.

"_NO!_" Yasu yelled.

She started running toward her daughter as fast as her legs would carry her, but she knew before she started that she had no chance of reaching Keiko before that huge, insectoid leg came down and crushed her little girl into paste.

Time suddenly seemed to slow down, Yasu's horror causing her to view the world as though it was in slow motion. She suddenly felt as though she was trying to run through water rather than air, and her senses seemed to sharpen impossibly. She felt like she could hear every soft sound in the background, smell every aroma in the air, no matter how faint, and see every single drop of sweat on her little girl's terrified face.

Yet for all that, she still didn't manage to see anything of the person that snatched Keiko out of harm's way but a crimson blur and a few tongues of golden lightning.

At least not until that person came to an abrupt stop right in front her, causing Yasu to release a small yelp of surprise and take a quick step backwards.

"Hey, there!" her daughter's savior greeted her cheerfully, holding Keiko in her arms. "Is this your kid?"

For a moment, Yasu just blinked dumbly at the teenage girl who stood before her. She should have looked absurd in the tight red bodysuit she wore, especially given the weird ornamentation she had on either side of her crimson cowl. Yet somehow, with the bolts of yellow energy still crackling over her form, illuminating her in a soft golden glow that seemed to hold the shadow of the Angel at bay, she looked almost…

Yasu was reluctant to call anyone in _that_ outfit "majestic" but the girl definitely didn't look absurd.

Then she snapped out of her stupor and took Keiko out of the girl's arms. "Y-Yes, she is," she said. "Thank you."

The girl in red looked down the fallen cyclist. "Hey, you okay, guy?" she asked.

"Uh, just a little stuck," the young man said embarrassedly.

The next thing Yasu knew, the girl was a blur of motion once more, moving far too quickly to see. In less than a second, the young man she'd nearly run over was free, and his bicycle had been almost completely disassembled, the parts laying off to the side.

"My bike!" the guy exclaimed.

The girl in red look at the pile of pieces, then grinned sheepishly.

"Uh, one second," the speedy girl said.

With that, she zipped off, only to return a second later, still moving so quickly she was a blur. Yasu saw her doing something to the deconstructed bicycle, but she didn't even have time to speculate on what exactly that might be before the girl was done.

"Ta-da!" she said, keeping one hand on the fully reassembled bike's handlebar's to balance it.

In her free hand, the remarkable girl held a wrench, what looked like the assembly instructions for the bike, and a rag.

_Did she… did she just run off and get those just now?_ Yasu wondered, amazed.

"There ya go," the girl said with a grin. "I also polished the frame for you and replaced the brakes. The old ones were getting worn out."

"Whoa," the young man said, looking about as gob smacked as Yasu felt. "Th-thanks. What's your name, anyway?"

The girl's grin widened. She placed her hands on her hips and thrust her (rather overdeveloped) chest out, placing emphasis on the lightning bolt emblem on her costume. "You can call me the Flash."

Keiko's scream ruined the scarlet speedster's dramatic moment, but it probably saved them all.

The Angel, never having had much interest in the puny ants it might or might not be stepping on while it traveled toward its destination, had at first just walked right past the little group of humans. However, the Flash's bursts of super speed had apparently gotten its attention.

Whether the Angel had interpreted her super-speed movements as an ineffectual attack or had just decided to preemptively strike at the potentially troublesome gnat was something that would never be known but was ultimately unimportant.

What was important was that the Angel fixed one of the huge yellow and blue eyes that covered its body on the four humans, and then a jet of brown liquid spurted forth from it.

"Well, _that_ doesn't look friendly," the Flash commented, quickly stepping forward so she was between the Angels and the trio of civilians who had chanced into this situation.

The fastest girl alive held both her arms forward, keeping them straight, then began to spin them so fast that they became nothing but blurs to her spectators' eyes, soon creating twin gales. Yasu held up a hand as her clothes and hair went whipping about; even well out of the path of the funnels of air the Flash had created, she felt like she was practically in the center of a tornado.

The two artificial wind currents the brown liquid the Angel had spewed out dead-on, instantly reversing the course of the mystery fluid. The stuff splashed against the very eye that had emitted it to begin with, and the Angel let out a loud hiss of obvious pain and anger, acrid smoke instantly rising from the place where the liquid had touched it.

"Oh, it's acid. Lovely," the Flash commented, then turned to the three people behind her. "Guys, I think once that thing gets over the pain, it's gonna be pissed off. You might want to vacate the area."

"Right," the young man said, instantly getting onto his bicycle. He turned to Yasu. "Hop on."

She was dubious of her ability to balance on the bicycle (Yasu hadn't been on a bike in years), especially with her daughter, but her car was obviously shot, and she wanted to be away from the area as soon as possible.

She had no idea how thoroughly her wish would be granted.

"Here, let me help," the Flash said once Yasu and Keiko had managed to awkwardly get themselves onto the bike. "I'm not strong enough to carry you three, but I can sure _push_."

The young man who owned the bike clearly wasn't so sure that was a good thing. "Um, I don't—"

But it was too late. The Flash had grabbed hold of the bicycle's metal frame and began to run. Yasu was aware of an intense blast of wind, of the world blurring around her, and of golden lighting, but only for a moment. The whole thing was over after only the tiniest sliver of a second. Then the bike came to a stop outside the entrance to one of the city's shelters.

Yasu got off the bicycle, only half surprised when she started staggering as though drunk once her feet touched the ground. Keiko fell almost immediately, but she giggled as she tumbled onto the sidewalk.

"Let's do it again!" the little girl exclaimed gleefully.

Yasu could only shake her head at the resilience of youth. She noticed that her daughter's hair had been incredibly mussed up by the brief but extraordinarily fast bike ride and belatedly realized that her own was no doubt just as bad.

"Heh heh," the Flash forced a sheepish chuckle. "Sorry about that. I'm not used to passengers yet."

"No… no big deal," the young man who owned the bike said as he unsteadily got to his feet, his pupils almost seeming to roll about freely inside his eyeballs.

"Okay, cool," the Flash said. "Anyway, I gotta go. Angels to fight and stuff."

And with that, she took off, leaving a gust of wind and a short lived trail of crackling lightning in her wake.

Yasu, Keiko, and the young cyclist just stood silently outside the shelter for a long moment, well after they had all regained their balance. They were in no great rush to be inside the shelter now; the Flash had taken them to a shelter that was a very good distance away from the Angel's current position.

"What just happened?" the cyclist spoke up finally.

"I'm not sure," Yasu said. "Something…something remarkable, I think."

* * *

Having dropped off the people she'd rescued, the Flash ran back toward where the Angel was, detouring on the way to make sure no other civilians were in the area around the multi-legged monster. This took her a few seconds, mostly because she felt the need to be thorough and then double check, but once she was done, she sped back to the Angel's position.

"Yo! Bug thing! Come and get me! I'm the one who killed your brother!" she called up at it, cupping her hands around her mouth to make the sound travel further. "…Or sister. I can't really tell with you guys!"

Whether the Angel understood her rather brutal taunt or not, it was certainly willing to engage the Flash again. One of its eyes focused on her and sent another spurt of acid her way. The Flash took a moment to yawn contemptuously before vacating the spot where the deadly liquid was bound for. It hit empty concrete, instantly smoking and eating a deep hole into the sidewalk.

The Flash blew a big, wet raspberry at the Angel. It responded by firing acid at her.

She moved. It fired acid at her again. She moved again. It fired acid at her again. She moved again.

"Well, this is quickly getting boring," the Flash commented to no one in particular. "You'd think fighting a giant spider _without_ an EVA would at least get my blood pumping…"

She ran directly beneath the body of the Angel, until she was on the other side of it. Her hope was that the thing would practically tie itself in knots as it tried to attack her, rapidly changing position, but this was not to be. Instead, the Angel simply started shooting acid at her from another one of the eyes which its body was covered with.

_Okay, new tactic,_ she thought.

This time, the Flash ran and stood at the base of one of the Angel's colossal legs, hoping that she could trick the thing into crippling itself with its own acid. However, this new strategy proved no more effective; rather than using its acid again, the Angel tried to kick her.

"Damn," the Flash grumbled as she easily evaded the attack. "This thing is _just_ smart enough to be annoying as hell. Now I need a new plan."

She pondered the issue for several relative minutes, which to the rest of the world was exactly 0.48 seconds. All she was doing at the moment was delaying the Angel really… which might be useful in and of itself. The longer she kept it just making holes in the street, the more time NERV Central had to reset the circuit breakers and get their Evangelions deployed.

However, she had no desire to spend an hour or so dodging the Angel's pathetically slow attacks. She hadn't agreed to put on the crimson cowl so she could die of boredom.

So that meant she had to find some way of fighting the Angel that was actually effective. A rather wicked smile formed on her face as she came up with a new idea.

"You just wait there for one second," she told the Angel.

It responded, predictably enough, by shooting acid at her. The Flash took off running, departing from the battlefield.

"Well I don't show off, don't criticize," she sang as she went. "Yeah, I'm just livin' by my own true feelings! Well I won't give in, won't compromise… because I only have a steadfast _heart of gold!_"

She stopped singing before she could get any further into the song, having already reached her destination, namely the city docks. Once there, it didn't take her much searching to find what she wanted: a very long length of heavy-duty chain, which was probably used to secure ships to the dock. The links were huge, the metal easily as thick as her forearms.

The Flash grabbed the end of the chain and hoisted it up with a grunt of effort, laying it over her shoulder. She wobbled briefly as the considerable weight settled upon her.

"Damn, good thing I work out," she muttered to herself before taking off again, the length of the chain trailing behind her as she went.

Soon finding the Angel again, the Flash quickly got to work. With some effort, she managed to tie one end of the chain around the bottom of one of its long legs, then she took off again, heading for the next leg. This time she simply wrapped the chain around the spindly appendage, not bothering to go to the trouble of an actual knot. She repeated the process several more times, until coming back to first leg. This one she once again tied a knot around.

Once she was done, the Flash retreated a good distance away, then allowed her perceptions to return to normal speed and waited for the show to start.

It didn't take long. The Angel immediately began to have trouble walking with its legs all tied together by the thick chain. It made a desperate scramble to regain its balance as it tripped, the bottoms of its legs tearing up great sections of the street as it did so, but it was to no avail. The Angel soon went tumbling.

"TIIIIMMMMBER!" the Flash yelled.

The Angel's central body landed atop a small group of skyscrapers which would have been retracted into the Geofront had the city had power. The Flash wasn't sure whether the massive amount of property damage was awesome or cringe worthy as she glass shattered and metal twisted beneath the Angel's weight. A massive cloud of dust was kicked up by the collapse of the building, momentarily obscuring the Fastest Girl Alive's view of her foe.

Then the dust settled, and the Flash laughed at what she saw. The Angel was laying atop a very big pile of rubble, its still bound legs sticking up in the air and making it look for all the world like it was just a very big, very dead bug.

"Did I actually kill it?" she wondered with a puzzled frown after it had failed to move for several seconds. "Geeze, if this thing croaks from 'fall down, go boom' that officially makes it the lamest Angel ever."

As if on cue, the Angel's legs jerked violently at that very moment, causing the chain that held them to snap and sending broken links flying everywhere. Many of the loops of thick metal crashed into the windows of nearby skyscrapers, and a few even hit car windshields, shattering off of them instantly.

"…I think I'm gonna need a bigger chain," the Flash declared as she watched the Angel get to its feet.

Then it focused _all_ of its many, many eyes upon her. She could actually hear them moving about inside the multiple eye sockets with a wet, horrible sound.

"You're going to shoot acid at me again? Really?" the Flash asked, more annoyed and exasperated than anything else. "Why? Because it worked so well before?"

The Angel didn't reply. Instead, it just kept giving the Flash a many eyed glare.

The confrontation between the giant spider and the relatively tiny but very fast girl was abruptly interrupted by a loud crash from in the distance, and both combatants turned to look at the source of the sound.

At first, the Flash saw nothing; whatever had made the noise was hidden behind a row of tall buildings. Then an enormous red helmet crested from behind the Tokyo-3 skyline as Evangelion Unit Two stood up. Moments later, it was joined by Units Zero and One.

_How the hell did they get up here? The power's still out!_ The Flash thought, looking around to confirm that any nearby traffic lights were still dark. _Wait a minute, did they actually launch the Evangelions manually?_

She decided that she'd definitely have to call herself impressed if they'd managed to pull that off.

Before the Angel could react to the appearance of the Evangelions, Unit Two raised the pallet rifle it held and fired off a long burst, sending shells that were normally fired only from the barrels of heavy tanks surging straight toward the spidery thing.

The Angel's body didn't have enough armor to shrug off such an assault without its AT Field, which was currently neutralized by those of the Evangelions. The Flash watched from her standpoint on the ground as the rounds punched straight through the Angel's body, each one creating a large exit wound which emitted a small geyser of dark blue blood.

Then Unit Two stopped firing. The Angel staggered about, and for a brief moment, the Flash thought it might have actually survived being turned into the world's least appetizing chunk of Swiss cheese.

Then it collapsed to the ground, the weight of its central body's bulk shattering the asphalt it happened to land on. It didn't make any attempt to stand and looked very, very dead.

_Damn,_ the Flash thought. _That's _another_ one that Asuka got._

The first production model Evangelion turned to look down at her, as though its pilot had sensed the thoughts someone was having about her. The Flash had thought she'd be too small for someone in an Evangelion to notice, but she supposed that her bright red costume made her stand out.

Smirking as she tried to imagine what Asuka was thinking at the sight of her, the Flash gave the crimson titan a jaunty salute and then ran off, soon disappearing from the other EVA pilot's sight.

* * *

Two hours later found the transport plane which had been carrying Unit Five on the ground at a military airfield just outside of Tokyo-3. The massive container which held the provisional Evangelion was sitting by the side of the runway, and a very annoyed Lieutenant Jessie Quinn was stalking around the interior of the gigantic metal box.

"Mari!" she called loudly, her voice echoing around the container. "Mari!"

"You rang?" the girl in question said from right behind her.

Jessie let out a small yelp of surprise and jumped. How Mari had managed to sneak up on her like that, she had no idea. The EVA pilot tried not to laugh and succeeded, but barely.

"_There_ you are," Jessie said. "Honestly, how were you able to stand hanging out inside this thing for so long? It's like an oven in here!" she wiped sweat away from her damp brow, emphasizing the point.

"Well, you know me, Jessie," Mari said. "I don't let most things get to me."

"Yeah, yeah," Jessie grumbled. "It was real mature of you to hide out in here. I've been trying to find you ever since I found out that we'd finally be landing."

Mari looked down at her feet. "Sorry, Jessie," she said. "I was just so pissed off. You know how I get when red tape gets in the way of doing the sensible thing, and I know you know how long I've been waiting to have a battle here."

Jessie sighed. "Yes, I do know," she said. "But Mari, I wasn't exaggerating when I said that being the focus of an international incident between America and Japan would be a nightmare. It might not have felt like it to you, but I was only trying to protect you. I like to do that whenever I get the chance, because you get sent out into harm's way so often, being an Evangelion pilot. Not to mention the new assignment you accepted from Commander Wells."

"I understand," Mari said. "Sorry, Jessie."

Jessie raised an eyebrow. She had been expecting more fight from her charge than that.

Then she decided to just be glad the incident was over and smiled. "Well, now that we've got that out of the way, let's get the hell out of this thing," she said. "I need a shower, and then we can get something to eat."

"Sweet," Mari said. "Oh, but aren't we supposed to report in to the base today?"

"Not anymore," Jessie replied. "Our official transfer to NERV Central has been delayed till tomorrow. They're busy enough getting things in order right now."

"All right," Mari said. "Oh, and I'm guessing that since we're still here, they managed to take care of the Angel."

"Yeah," Jessie replied. "NERV Central managed to manually launch their Evangelions and kill it."

_With a little quick help from a certain someone,_ Mari added silently, unable to suppress a small smirk.

* * *

Shinji Ikari yawned as he walked through the halls of NERV headquarters the next morning, covering his mouth politely as he did so. "Excuse me," he said.

Walking along with him, Asuka just released a small grunt of acknowledgement, apparently weary as well. Rei made no response at all.

After they had destroyed the Angel, the three Evangelions hadn't had enough battery power remaining for the pilots to even consider returning to them to their cages. The three of them had parked their Evangelions outside the city and had sat down on the side of a grassy hill to await the restoration of power to the city.

Shinji had enjoyed that; it had been one of the few pleasant, quiet moments he'd managed to have with his two fellow pilots so far, even if Rei's comments had been cryptic and Asuka had kept talking about seeing some strange girl in red on the streets.

But then the lights had come back on, and the brief, peaceful respite had ended. They'd had to wait while NERV brought out power cables for their Evangelions so they could return the beasts to their cages. Then they had to report to base and wait until they were debriefed. This usually happened quite soon after every battle, but with power recently restored after the long blackout, everything had been hectic and the Children had fallen through the cracks.

They had been kept waiting for over an hour, and it would have been much longer if Asuka hadn't started shouting.

There were times Shinji had to admit that the redhead's force of personality could be useful, so long as it wasn't directed at him.

Yet in spite of that, it had been very late by the time they'd all gotten to go home, and Shinji hadn't appreciated being woken early that morning and told he was going to NERV.

He had appreciated the vague justification for the trip he had received upon asking why they had to go even less.

"Misato said that we were coming here to 'meet someone,'" Shinji said. "Who do you suppose that is?"

"Baka, you can't even guess?" Asuka asked, but with little real heat. The redhead was apparently feeling as tired as he was.

"Um, no," he replied.

"You really don't pay attention to anything, do you?" Asuka observed.

"I'm sorry."

The Second Child sighed in annoyance. "We're getting reinforcements from the US."

"Reinforcements from the US?" Shinji repeated, still not quite getting it.

"Yeah," Asuka said absently, clearly not feeling any great need to elaborate for him. "It's been so long since I last saw Makinami."

Shinji was about to ask who Makinami was exactly when they arrived at their destination, which was the door to one of the base's conference rooms. Misato stood there, and gave them a small smile.

"Hi, guys," she greeted her pilots.

Shinji and Asuka both mumbled a good morning. Rei just kept silent. Misato briefly scowled at the underwhelming response, and then seemed to regain her usual cheerfulness.

"Anyway, guys, come in," the Ops Director said, opening the door and entering the room.

Shinji blinked as he walked in himself, taking in the two people in the conference room. One was a slim woman wearing a uniform not too dissimilar from Misato's own, sans the beret, her blond hair tied in a very professional looking bun.

The other one… the other one was a girl of approximately his age, or perhaps a little older. She was wearing an unfamiliar school uniform that consisted of a plaid skirt, a white shirt, a tie, and black nylons. Her long, brown hair was held in check by an odd hair band that might have been her A-10 connectors; Shinji wasn't sure. Unlike the NERV officer, she was sitting on the edge of the conference table, her legs kicking gently back and forth.

"Guys," Misato said, "I'd like to introduce you to Mari Illustrious Makinami, pilot of Provisional Evangelion Unit Five and, as of an hour ago, the Fourth Child. And, of course, her guardian-Lieutenant Jessica Quinn."

The newly arrived pilot got off the table and faced her comrades-in-arms, grinning cheekily. "Hey, guys," she greeted them all, giving them a peace sign. "What up?"

* * *

**Author's Notes:** This one didn't come quite so effortlessly as the previous chapters in Mari's story did, and I don't think Mari got in quite so many snappy one-liners as usual. However, I did have fun with this, and I have to say I was pleased with her response to Wells' request that she not level the city.

I hope I didn't make her too obnoxious in this chapter, but Mari really strikes me as someone you don't want to be on a long car ride with, never mind an intercontinental flight.

Anyway, in this chapter we got to see her in action as the Flash for the first time…and to see a sort of speed vs. power dynamic that Barry and Wally don't actually deal with all that much. You see, the Flash's rogues tend to be rather specialized baddies. They're mostly normal guys, not invisible uber villains, but they have gadgets and gimmicks that let them avoid losing to the Flash in two seconds. That way, the writers avoid a stalemate situation where the Flash can't hurt the bad guy, but the bad guy can't touch the Flash. However, most of the Angels can invoke that type of conundrum, which is why I kept Unit Five functional, instead of having Mari self-destruct it like she actually did in Rebuild. Which is not necessarily to say Mari won't clash with an Angel sans her Eva again.

Also, we got to see Mari as the Flash interacting with the innocent bystanders. I tried to get some of the Flash's uniqueness to come through here with her not just saving everybody, but then also fixing the guy's bike for him. Batman sure as hell wouldn't do that. Heck, even Superman wouldn't.

Anyway, as always, thanks to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

Oh, and one more thing before we get to the fun stuff and I stop rambling. Who can identify the song Mari sings as she's going to get the chain, and what other famous speedster it's associated with?

* * *

Omake

The Stash

"Lieutenant Quinn?" the pilot's disembodied voice filled their compartment. "Could you come up here, please?"

Jessie and Mari traded a look, then the lieutenant shrugged. "I'll be right back," she said.

Jessie headed over to the cockpit, leaving Mari alone. The bespectacled EVA pilot literally twiddled her thumbs for a few seconds, before she gave into temptation and picked up her guardian's precious paperback novel. With a smirk, she began to skim through it, soon snickering at some of the things she read.

"How can she read this gooey romantic crap?" Mari wondered aloud as she continued to glance at the words on the page. "I mean, really, every woman has a great, heaving bosom, and every guy has a huge, hard, throbbing…"

She trailed off, suddenly paying a great deal more attention to the book. She kicked into speed mode and read the entire novel in 3.7 seconds. Then she read it ten more times.

"Wow. That was…intense," Mari said once she was finally done with the book. "…I wonder what else Jessie has?"

She was rummaging through her guardian's luggage before she had even finished speaking, and she was amazed at what she found. Jessie's bag had more books in it than it did clothing and other necessities, and judging by the illustrations on the cover, they were even steamier than the first one.

Mari speed read through all of them. Moments later, she was reeling from the effects of absorbing a mass amount of smut in under twenty seconds.

A thin trail of blood came from her left nostril. Mari knew that this was a sign she should stop, but the EVA pilot had always counted "go big or go home" as her personal motto.

She dug deeper into Jessie's bag, and her face paled at what she discovered. Whips, chains, and hand-cuffs lined with fur.

But the worst was the picture. The old, slightly battered photograph showed somewhat younger versions of Special Inspector Kaji and a woman Mari recognized as NERV Central's Operations Director, sitting next to one another on a bed and smiling at the camera. Both of them were barely dressed enough to be considered decent.

The words "Jessie, you always spice up our nights. Please look us up if you ever get back to Japan. We never consider three to be a crowd," were written on it, and both Kaji and Katsuragi had signed it.

Mari's eyes shrank to the size of pinpricks.

* * *

_Two minutes later…_

Jessie returned to the cargo compartment with an unreadable look on her face, but her expression quickly changed to one of confusion when she saw her charge.

"Mari, are you all right?" she asked.

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" Jessie persisted. "You look as red as a tomato. You don't have a fever or something, do you?"

"I'm perfectly fine!" Mari exclaimed. "Now can we please talk about _anything_ other than any kinky relationships you might have had when you were younger?"

"…Ooookaay." A confused Jessie agreed.


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Four: **Adjusting to Mari

"Give it back!" Hotaka exclaimed angrily. "It's mine!"

Jiro Yamazaki smirked down at the younger boy, then regarded the plastic toy he had in his grip. The little purple thing was clearly supposed to be EVA Unit One. "You really care about this thing, Hotaka?" he asked. "It's a piece of junk! It looks like somebody made it in their garage!"

"_I_ made it," Hotaka said hotly. "NERV doesn't let people sell action figures of the Evangelions. Now give it back!"

Jiro chuckled sinisterly. "I'll tell you what, shrimp," he said. "You can have it back…if you can take if from me."

Hotaka was so angry that, even though he knew better, he quickly reached out and tried to snatch his toy out of the bully's grip. Unsurprisingly, Jiro was easily able to move the action figure just out of his grasp. Hotaka tried again, and again, but to no avail. Eventually, Jiro just held the toy up as high as he could, putting it completely out of Hotaka's reach.

"Come on, Jiro, give it back!" Hotaka said, jumping up and down in repeated, futile attempts to reach his toy. "This isn't funny!"

"It is to me!" Jiro chortled.

Hotaka felt something inside him snap at seeing the naked pleasure the bully was taking from his frustration. With a low growl, the smaller boy launched himself at the bigger one.

Jiro reached out with his free hand and casually gave Hotaka a shove. The smaller boy was knocked to the ground, landing painfully on his rear.

From his undignified position on the sidewalk, Hotaka glared up at Jiro, a very militant gleam in his eye. The bully's smirk dared the smaller boy to try and attack him again. Hotaka's fists clenched, and he seethed at the unfairness of it.

The two boys were in the same year at school, but that was only because Jiro had been held back a couple of times. As a result, Jiro was a few years older. Not only that, but even for his age, he was big, and heavyset, too.

_The dumb gorilla probably had to start shaving when he was seven,_ Hotaka thought, continuing to glare silently up at the twelve-year-old boy. Sure enough, the bully possessed more facial hair than many boys _years _older than he was.

"Come on, don't you want it back?" Jiro asked, lowering the toy somewhat and waving it enticingly before Hotaka.

Done rising to the bait, the smaller boy just remained where he was and seethed silently.

"Well," Jiro said, "if you don't want this thing, I guess I can take it. Even if it is a homemade piece of—"

The bully was cut off as a powerful gust of wind blew over the two of them, ruffling their hair. Neither one of them actually saw anything, but when the wind had died down, Jiro's hands were empty.

"What the heck?" the older boy exclaimed in surprise and confusion.

"You know," a girl's voice spoke from nearby, "this is a pretty good model. The horn's too short, and Evangelions are lankier, but overall it's not bad."

Both boys turned their heads, and their eyes widened as they saw her, a girl clad in a tight red outfit with a thunderbolt emblem on her chest. A crimson cowl with blue lenses concealed her face, and she held Hotaka's action figure in her hand.

"Oh man," Jiro murmured, visibly swallowing.

Hotaka grinned maliciously. _Oh, somebody's in for it now._

The Flash walked toward the smaller boy and offered him a hand up. Hotaka blinked in amazement at her gloved hand for a second before putting his own in it. She hoisted him to his feet with surprising strength and then held out the toy.

"Is this yours, kid?" she asked.

"Y-Yeah," he said, accepting the plastic figure. "Thanks."

"You make it yourself?" she asked.

"Yeah," Hotaka said. "It has kung-fu kick action." He pushed the little switch on the action figure's back, causing its purple leg to jerk upwards.

"Cool!" she said with a toothy grin. "Does it transform?"

Hotaka's shoulders slumped. "No," he said. "Does the real one transform?"

"Nah, not so far as I know, anyway. I just thought it would be cool if yours did," the Flash answered with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Then the scarlet speedster turned, her gaze falling upon Jiro. The bully had been trying to slowly slink away while she chatted with Hotaka. Now he stopped dead in his tracks.

"You stole this guy's action figure?" she asked.

"S-So what if I did?" Jiro asked. He tried to sound defiant, but the stutter completely ruined the effect.

The Flash put her hands on her hips. "Then I think you owe him an apology," she proclaimed.

_That_ got his hackles up. This Flash might be able to outrun even the most modern fighter jet in existence, but Jiro's pride wouldn't let him back down from a _girl_. He was just as tall as she was, or pretty close to it, and he definitely outweighed her. He could probably take her, he reasoned.

"And why should I?" the bully demanded, feeling pleased that his voice was no longer the least bit shaky.

Unfortunately, the fastest girl alive just smirked. "Because I could kick your butt thirty times before you even started to feel it?" she suggested.

That gave Jiro pause, but he wasn't ready to back down quite yet. He held his ground and said nothing.

The Flash sighed and rolled her eyes. "Boys," she said in exasperation.

Then she seemed to wink out of existence, at least to Jiro's eye. One second she was standing next to Hotaka, and the next she was gone. However, she reappeared as quickly as she had vanished, and Jiro was left wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him.

Or at least, he was until he realized why it suddenly felt so drafty, and why that puny wimp Hotaka had abruptly started to laugh hysterically…

"Ah!" he yelped, realizing that his pants were suddenly on the ground around his ankles.

_Oh man, tighty-whities!_ Hotaka thought, using all his willpower to keep himself from falling down and rolling on the ground in his laughter.

Jiro quickly bent down and pulled his pants back up, but once he did, he realized that the button on them was completely gone, as was his belt. He'd have to hold them up or they'd soon fall down again.

"Now wouldn't it have been _much_ easier to just apologize?" the Flash asked.

The bully scowled darkly at her, but he wasn't quite stupid enough to challenge her again. Instead he turned and started running for home. Having to hold his pants up as he went made his stride more than a little awkward.

It took Hotaka a couple of minutes to stop laughing, and by the time he finally managed it, tears of mirth had streamed down his face. He wiped the moisture away with a hand.

"Oh, wow, that was the most awesome thing ever," he said. "Thanks so much! I'd heard about you, but I didn't really think that you'd take the time to do something like this."

"Aw, it was nothing, kid," the Flash said, grinning broadly. "I was happy to help."

The scarlet speedster made a mental note to thank Denise the next time the two of them spoke. She'd hadn't been entirely sure about the whole "taking on the mantle of the Flash" thing when her best friend had first proposed it, but damn if it wasn't one of the most fun, action-packed things ever. Already she had foiled a mugging, thwarted a purse snatching, saved a dog from getting run over by a car, helped put out a fire downtown, and now she had helped this kid.

And all of it just during her "walk" to her first day of school.

"That was so cool how you took my action figure back from him without us even being able to _see_ you," Hotaka was gushing. "Man, my friends are _never_ gonna believe that I got to meet the Whizzer."

The Flash's grin suddenly turned brittle, and a sound not unlike the screeching of brakes filled her mind.

"Wait a sec," she said. "**What** did you just call me?"

"The Whizzer," Hotaka said innocently. "I thought that was your superhero name. That's what the _Tokyo Tattler _calls you."

"I'm called the Flash," she said. "And what's the _Tokyo Tattler_?"

"It's a magazine," Hotaka answered. "They only cover this city and Tokyo-2, and I think they're set up downtown."

"Hmm, think I have to pay them a visit," the scarlet speedster mused aloud. "I gotta go. See ya, around."

An instant later, the Flash was rocketing off into the distance, transforming into a crimson blur of motion that was wreathed in crackling tongues of golden energy.

"Bye!" Hotaka called after her, even though he was sure she couldn't hear him. "And thanks again!"

* * *

The main room inside the _Tokyo Tattler_'s headquarters was never a quiet place, regardless of whether it was the middle of the day or the dead of night. Gossip never slept, and many of the people who worked for the publication followed its example. There was always a light buzz of conversation, the sound of the copiers working, the ringing of phones, and, of course, the occasional argument.

However, the sudden, intense gust of wind that sent half the paper in the newsroom flying about wildly was unusual even to the staff of the _Tattler_.

"The Whizzer? You people actually decided to name me the _Whizzer_?"

The source of the papery blizzard was standing on a desk that was roughly in the center of the newsroom, waving around a copy of the _Tattler_'s latest issue. It had an extremely blurry image of her on the cover, and a headline that read, "THE WHIZZER WHIZZES ONTO THE SCENE!"

As the papers that the Flash had disrupted floated gently to the floor, the newsroom went dead silent for the first time since the staff of the _Tattler_ had moved in.

Unlike Jiro, nobody in the room was stupid enough to believe they could fight the speedster and win. And somehow, they'd never really expected her to pay them a visit, no matter _what_ they published about her.

So they were just a _little_ scared at the moment.

When no one dared to venture a response to her, the Flash looked around, finally noticing that everyone was practically cowering before her.

"People, _chill_, I'm not gonna hurt you!" she said. "I just want you to get your facts about me straight. Do your homework, you know?"

Slowly accepting that the scarlet speedster had no vengeful intentions toward them, the various staffers gradually started to relax. However, it remained very quiet inside the big room.

At least until one intrepid columnist found the nerve to speak up. "So if you don't want to be the Whizzer, what should we call you?"

The scarlet speedster grinned, then placed her fists on her hips and thrust her chest out, striking her best heroic pose. All that was missing was a gust of wind to blow her brown locks about. "I'm the Flash," she said.

"Right, we'll make sure everybody knows that. Say, do you think you could give us an interview?"

The Flash glanced at a clock on the far wall and shook her head. "Sorry, but I have places to go, people to see," she said.

"How about just a photo, then?" another staffer asked, holding up a camera. "We haven't been able to get a good one of you yet, since you move so fast and everything…"

The Flash considered for a moment. "I'll take a picture with you guys, _if_ I can have those," she said, indicating a box of rice balls that was sitting on a nearby desk.

"Done!" the editor exclaimed.

The hapless intern who'd brought the things to work in an attempt to win brownie points looked ready to protest, but a quick glare from the editor quelled him instantly.

The Flash didn't notice the silent exchange; she was already pouncing on the food, kicking into speed mode so she could eat faster. In approximately 0.78 seconds, the rice balls had all vanished down her gullet.

"Urp!" she burped loudly, then covered her mouth, a slight blush on her cheeks. "Excuse me. So where do you want to take this picture?"

Setting up for the photograph turned out to be quite a big production. Everyone wanted to get into the shot, but there was no space in the newsroom large enough to pack in the entire the crew of the _Tattler_. Some of the furniture had to be moved, and once that was done, the general jostling for position among the staffers took up another few minutes.

Finally, everything was ready. The unlucky individual who had drawn the short straw and thus did not get to be in the picture held up his camera.

"Okay, everybody, say 'flash!'"

"_Flash!_" everyone chorused, and the scarlet speedster held up her right hand, making the V-sign with her fingers just as the camera clicked.

"Thanks a lot," the editor said as everyone began to drift apart once the photo had been snapped.

"Hey, it was no problem. In fact, I…" she trailed off as she glanced at the clock again, and her eyes widened. She hadn't realized how much time had passed. "Oh man! I'm gonna be late! Sorry, guys, I have to run!"

And with that, she was gone, leaving another whirlwind of papers in her wake.

* * *

"A new EVA pilot?" Kensuke exclaimed. "Really? NERV was looking for a new EVA pilot and _you didn't tell me?_"

"Shh, keep it down," Shinji urged, then nervously looked around the classroom to see if anyone had heard the otaku's overly indignant exclamation.

Fortunately, class hadn't started yet, and Kensuke's words apparently hadn't traveled far in the chatter of conversation generated by the other students. Shinji felt relieved; he didn't know if Makinami planned to let everyone know she was a pilot, or if she intended to keep it a secret. If she did want to keep her status secret, he certainly didn't want it to be his fault that everyone knew before she even showed up to class.

"Why didn't you tell me NERV was recruiting?" Kensuke hissed, much more quietly this time. He flexed his fingers while he spoke, which almost made his hands look like claws. "You _know_ how much I want to pilot!"

Toji, who was seated behind Kensuke, managed to catch Shinji's gaze. The jock rolled his eyes and then made a face, rather clearly conveying his opinion that the otaku was nuts.

Shinji's lips twitched, but he managed to get control of his features before his expression turned into a full blown smirk. "NERV wouldn't tell me if they were going recruiting. They don't tell me…well, much of anything, really," he told Kensuke. "And from what I understand, this girl's been training to pilot EVA almost as long as Asuka. It's not like they went looking for a new pilot last week and picked her."

"So, the new pilot's another girl, then," Toji said. "Is she hot?"

_Yes,_ Shinji thought, but he just shrugged in answer to his friend's question.

Toji rolled his eyes. "Geeze, Shin-man, you really need to grow a hormone one of these days," he commented.

"Why'd they wait so long to bring her here?" Kensuke asked.

Shinji shrugged again. "I don't know. Why'd they wait so long to bring Asuka here?"

"Why couldn't they have waited _longer_ to bring the Devil here?" Toji grumbled. "Like maybe until Doomsday?"

Kensuke ignored the jock's comment. "So she's another one from out of the country, then? What's she like?" he asked, eager for every possible detail he could learn about the Evangelion program.

"She's from America, but she's part Japanese, like Asuka, I guess," Shinji said. "And I don't really know what she's like. I only met her for a minute the other day, and I haven't seen her since."

He felt a twinge of annoyance as he thought back to the meet-and-greet from a couple of days ago. He, Asuka, and Rei had been roused early for it the morning after an Angel battle that necessitated a late night, only to have the newly minted Fourth Child ushered off for a series of sync tests before they could do more than swap names.

"So is she going to go to school here?" Kensuke asked.

Shinji nodded. "Yeah, she's supposed to start today, in fact," he said. "I thought she'd be here by now, though."

"Man, this is so cool," the otaku said. "First we hear that there's somebody with super speed zipping around town like some kind of super hero, and now there's a new EVA pilot."

"Come on, Ken, you don't really believe that stuff printed in the tabloids about 'the Whizzer,' do you?" Toji asked, rolling his eyes.

Kensuke opened his mouth, clearly ready to make some kind of indignant response, but the door to the classroom swung open before he could. The otaku eagerly turned to look at the newcomer, but his shoulders slumped when he saw only the wizened form of their teacher.

Immediately, the class rep sprang into action. "Stand! Bow! Sit!"

As always, everyone obeyed Hikari Horaki's commands without even stopping to think about it first. The elderly teacher gave a small nod of thanks to the freckled girl and then proceeded to launch into his usual lecture about the pre-Impact world. Within minutes, all the students had fallen into a stupor or were outright dozing. It was the very portrait of a typical day for class 2-A.

Or at least it was, until someone knocked on the door to the classroom a few minutes later.

The teacher didn't seem to notice the noise and continued his lecture. The knock came again, more loudly this time. Hikari cleared her throat.

"Excuse me, Sensei," she said, raising her hand. "It sounds like someone's at the door. It's probably the new student who's supposed to start today."

A quiet buzz of conversation began the moment the class rep spoke these words. Besides the small handful in the know (which consisted of the pilots, Hikari, Toji, and Kensuke), everyone had had no idea a new student would be arriving that day.

Then the class rep glared at her fellow students, and they fell silent instantly.

The teacher, however, noticed none of this exchange. "Enter," he called toward the person outside the classroom.

The door swung open, and Mari Illustrious Makinami strode in, still clad in her old uniform from the Johnson Memorial Private School for Bright Youths. "Hey, everybody!" she greeted the class cheerfully, then belatedly remembered to bow to the teacher. "I apologize for my lateness. I guess I got a little lost." She said with a sheepish smile.

The teacher waved it off. "Since this is your first day, I'll let it go," he said. "Why don't you introduce yourself to the rest of the class and then have a seat?"

Mari nodded and walked away from the door until she was standing at the front of the class. "I'm Mari Illustrious Makinami, Evangelion pilot extraordinaire!" she proclaimed, which by itself was enough to set the school rumor mill into overdrive. "I hail from Keystone City, USA. I'm an orphan, so I don't really know much about where I come from, but I _do_ know that I'm part Japanese, so I'm looking forward to staying in this land of my ancestors. I hope we all get along real well."

And with that, she selected an empty desk and plopped down in the seat behind it. The teacher quickly resumed his usual monologue, and the excitement of the student body died down. When the lunch period came around, the gossip would begin in earnest. Until then, it was just the daily struggle to stay awake.

Shinji, however, was in no danger of nodding off. He was…almost flummoxed by Mari's introduction.

_She's…loud,_ he thought.

In Japan, cultural norms decreed that women should be quiet and demure, so it was unusual for a girl to speak as loudly as Mari seemed to most of the time. Of course, Shinji knew more than one woman who bucked the trend—Asuka immediately sprang to mind—but the newly arrived EVA pilot somehow wasn't loud in the same way the redhead was loud.

_Asuka's loud and angry. Makinami seems to just be loud,_ he thought with a hint of a smirk appearing on his face.

What really threw him for a loop though, was the way the Fourth Child had just let everyone know she was an orphan. Shinji supposed he should have guessed, considering that Mari had a NERV officer for a guardian, like himself and Asuka. However, he and Asuka also lived with a guardian, and they weren't technically orphans.

_I don't know whether to pity her or envy her,_ he mused, a vast but generally concealed well of bitterness rising up inside him for a moment.

Regardless of what her situation was like relative to his own, however, Shinji felt quite sure that being an orphan couldn't be a _good_ thing. Yet Mari seemed completely unbothered both by the fact that she was one, to the point that she obviously felt no qualms about making it public right off the bat.

So far as Shinji could tell that meant she was either extremely weird, or that she had come to terms with her less than ideal situation and no longer let it trouble her.

If it was the latter, he envied her like hell and wondered how she might have done it.

Then he shook his head ruefully. _Even if I knew how, I could never hope to do the same. I'm just too messed up._

Thoroughly lost in thought as he was, Shinji completely failed to notice when Kensuke leaned close to Toji and began speaking very quietly.

"Looks like it's time to start the photo business back up," the otaku said with a grin.

"I don't know, man," Toji whispered back. "If we get caught…"

Only after raking in the money by helping his otaku friend sell pictures of the Second Child had the jock come to realize just how great a risk they had taken. If they'd gotten caught, they would have been in a _huge_ amount of trouble, especially for the pictures they'd managed to take of her while she was in the girls' locker room. They might even have gotten a special kind of punishment from Section Two, which would've been well beyond anything the school might have done to them.

_Or, even worse, we might've had to face the Devil herself,_ he thought. _Or even __**worse**__, we might've had to face the class rep._

The thought of a furious Hikari Horaki bearing down on him caused the jock to shudder.

"What?" Kensuke hissed. "C'mon, man, the _money_…!"

"I'm not sure as many guys will be willing to shell out cash for pictures of her," Toji replied. "This Makinami chick isn't as exotic looking as the Devil."

That much was quite true. The Second Child's copper-colored mane immediately marked her as a foreigner to anyone who saw her. While this new Fourth Child was certainly attractive, her brown locks were nothing unusual or exciting to the Japanese students. Indeed, if not for her mannerisms (which practically screamed "gaijin"), she might've been able to pass for completely Japanese, at least at first glance.

However, Kensuke wasn't at all willing to give up on the idea. "She doesn't need to look as exotic as the Devil. That _body_ will more than make up for it," he insisted. "We'll make a killing."

"You think?"

"I know," Kensuke said firmly. "We have got to start the business back up. And we have _got_ to get at least a few shots of her before she gets one of this school's uniforms." He added, glancing appreciatively at her plaid skirt—this being significantly shorter than the ones the other girls were wearing—as well as her long, shapely legs, which were clad in thigh-high black nylons.

Toji indulged in a long look at the new girl himself, quickly seeing his friend's point. "Okay," he agreed. "Looks like we're open for business again."

* * *

"Congratulations on your recent promotion, _Major_ Katsuragi," Jessie Quinn said with a smile, holding up the can of soda she had for a toast.

Her violet-haired fellow officer just groaned and refused to return the gesture. "Not that," she said. "It feels like that's all I've been hearing from everyone lately, and I don't think it's really that big a deal."

The blonde arched an eyebrow, confused by Misato's reluctance to celebrate her promotion, but she didn't press the issue. "Okay, what should we toast to then?" she asked.

Misato considered for a moment, then broke out into a grin. "Here's to the Losers," she said, raising her own drink.

Jessie smiled in response. "I'll drink to that," she said, and the two tapped their soda cans together. "Those were good days." She added after taking a long drink.

"Great days," Misato agreed with a nod.

For a moment, the two women weren't in the NERV commissary eating lunch together. Instead, they were both firmly in the not-too-distant past.

Before signing up with (or, in Jessie's case, being transferred to) NERV, the two had served together as members of a short-lived but very successful UN Army special forces group. During team training, the members of the squad had made the discovery that each of them had lost every last member of their families in Second Impact. They had christened the team "the Losers" that very day.

_They were idiots to break us up,_ Jessie mused, and she wouldn't have been the least bit surprised to learn that Misato was thinking along the same lines.

For the brief time the Losers had been together, they'd had a mission success rate of damn near a hundred percent, and they'd usually operated in some of the most dangerous areas of the post Second Impact world to boot. But political tensions between the countries whose soldiers comprised the international unit—which had been more than a little experimental—had led to the group being dissolved and the Losers' adventures ending far too early.

"God, I wonder what everybody else is up to these days," Misato said. Many of the former Losers had gone on covert assignments after the squad was dissolved, which made it rather difficult to keep in touch, regardless of how much they might have wanted to. Jessie was the only one Misato had consistently managed to stay in contact with.

"I saw Gunner just last year. He has his own command now. Infantry battalion, or something," Jessie said. "I don't know about the others, though."

"Good for him," Misato said, then shook her head. "I can't tell you how much I miss being with the other Losers sometimes. I mean, it was like…"

"Family," Jessie finished.

Misato nodded. It wasn't at all uncommon for people who served in the military together to develop close bonds, especially if they had to regularly depend upon one another to stay alive in dangerous circumstances. However, things had gone just a step further with the Losers, none of whom had any real family waiting for them back home.

Jessie chuckled.

"What?" Misato asked.

"I was just thinking about how much I probably would've fought becoming Mari's guardian, if the Losers hadn't just been broken up and I wasn't feeling so damn lonely because of it," she said. "I guess it also didn't hurt that I saw myself in her, the orphan girl joining the military."

Misato nodded. "I know what you mean. I don't think I would have volunteered to be Asuka's guardian back in Germany if I hadn't seen how well you were getting on with Mari. And if I hadn't done _that_, I probably wouldn't have taken Shinji in, either," she said, then shook her head, forcing herself back to the present. "So, how is Mari these days, anyway?"

"As overzealous as ever," Jessie said, exasperation coloring her voice. "She…well, you saw what she did in the battle against that Angel."

"'_Cowabunga_,'" Misato repeated the American EVA pilot's battle cry with a smirk. "I'm actually hoping she'll rub off on Shinji a little. He could stand to bring some more 'cowabunga' into battle with him."

"And here I was hoping exposure to the First and Third Children might make Mari become a little more subdued," Jessie said ruefully. "I tell you, Misato, that girl is going to make me go gray before my time. I worry so damn much that one of these days she'll do something just a little _too_ crazy and get herself killed."

"At least she likes piloting," Misato said soberly. "Shinji doesn't, and it just kills me inside, the way we're guilting the poor kid into going to bat for us again and again."

"Well, maybe Mari will teach him how to enjoy it," Jessie said optimistically. "She's pretty interested in the other pilots, especially the Third Child…"

* * *

That afternoon, once school let out, Shinji found himself entirely free for the afternoon, which was quite a rare occurrence these days. Misato had told him she'd be working late, while Asuka was going to hang out with Hikari and wouldn't be back until fairly late, as well. This meant he didn't have to cook dinner for his two housemates. Additionally, Toji and Kensuke were both busy that day, and there were no tests at NERV he had to endure.

Shinji was quite looking forward to having a few hours to himself; he planned to spend them playing his cello, actually controlling the remote to the apartment's TV (something he _never_ got to do when Asuka or Misato was home), and, of course, listening to his SDAT.

_It'll be _so _relaxing,_ he thought with a small smile as he walked away from the school.

"Hey, Shinji!"

The Third Child blinked upon hearing the cheerful and _loud_ voice call his name. He turned to see Makinami jogging toward him.

Shinji was slightly taken aback at the way she'd used his given name like that, considering that they'd only spoken for about two minutes.

_Then again, I guess it's just to be expected,_ he thought as he waited for her to reach him. _She _is_ an American, after all._

"Hi there!" Mari greeted him again as she finally drew near.

"Hello, Makinami," he replied politely.

"Oh, c'mon Shinji, just call me 'Mari,'" she said. "No need to get all formal."

"Okay," he said, still not quite sure what she wanted. "So, um, what can I do for you, Mari?"

"Well, I…" she trailed off before going any further and began sniffing at the air.

A drop of sweat appeared on the back of Shinji's head. "Uh, Mari, are you okay?"

"You smell good," she proclaimed with a wide, almost drunken smile. "You smell like LCL."

She abruptly leaned toward him, apparently to get a better smell. His personal space violated, Shinji quickly withdrew a step.

_Oh…wow,_ he thought.

The Third Child recalled how Toji had once bluntly speculated that only weirdoes could pilot an Evangelion. Shinji was starting to wonder if the jock hadn't been onto something.

"Okaaay," he said. "Well, ah, I'll just be going now…"

He tried to beat a hasty retreat, but his attempt was immediately thwarted when Mari grabbed hold of his arm. "Hey, you can't leave," she said, wagging a finger. "That's what I was going to tell you: we're gonna hang out."

He blinked stupidly at her. "Huh?"

"As fellow pilots, don't you think we should get to know each other?" Mari asked.

"Um, why don't you get to know Asuka or Rei?" he suggested.

"I already know Asuka, and Rei smells like antiseptics," Mari answered without missing a beat.

Shinji, who was always intimidated by the prospect of embarking on unfamiliar social activities, as well as a _little_ bit perturbed by Mari's liking for the scent of LCL, desperately tried to find some means of escape.

"Uh, I can't today…" he stammered.

"Why not?" she challenged, grinning at him.

_Damn,_ he thought, wondering what the odds were of this happening on one of the very rare days he had nothing he needed to do. His face turned glum as he saw his plans for a peaceful and relaxing afternoon going up in smoke.

"_Aww!_" Mari exclaimed, in the way girls typically did when they thought something was cute. "That expression makes you look just like a sad little puppy!"

"Wha…what?" Shinji blinked.

"Well, don't worry, Puppy-kun!" Mari said. "This is gonna be a lot of fun, I promise!"

And with that, she told hold of his wrist and began to lead the boy off. Shinji was too befuddled to protest and just let himself be pulled after the Fourth Child.

"_Puppy-kun?_" he echoed stupidly as he was dragged away.

* * *

Meanwhile, down in the Geofront, within the cavernous office of the Commander of NERV, Gendo Ikari was not happy. Not happy at all.

"This was most unexpected," he said flatly, gazing at a large screen which was normally concealed within the wall.

Next to him, Fuyutski couldn't quite conceal a smirk. While the old professor didn't think Gendo truly realized it, the man's gift for understatement could be so extreme at times that it bordered on the comedic.

That, and he supposed there was _still_ a part of him that couldn't help but take a spiteful sort of pleasure in seeing anything go wrong with the Scenario, even so many years after having been drafted into NERV by Gendo.

"When that tabloid first printed its story, I felt almost certain they were just fabricating things, or exaggerating unexplained events," Fuyutski said. "Turning weather balloons into flying saucers, as it were. Now, however…"

"Now it is undeniable," Gendo finished.

The two men silently gazed at the screen for a while, which displayed the _Tokyo Tattler's_ website. The tabloid had already posted the picture they'd taken of the Flash that morning, along with a correction about her name. Additionally, several people that the scarlet speedster had helped had written in about their experiences, and the tabloid's staff had been perfectly happy to post these as well.

While neither Fuyutski nor Gendo would really put it past the tabloid to construct such a huge ruse, it was unlikely that they could pull it off in such a short period of time. And even if they could, they probably would have preferred to dribble out information at a much slower pace, to keep readers in suspense.

_The evidence is indeed irrefutable,_ Gendo thought grimly.

"There is a new Flash in the world, and she has decided to call Tokyo-3 her home," the Commander said.

"Is it really that much of a problem?" Fuyutski asked. "So far, everything we've seen indicates that this girl is going around rescuing cats that have gotten stuck up in trees and stopping muggings. Is she really a serious threat?"

"Tell me, Sensei, how much do you know about the previous Flash?" Gendo asked, rather than answer his former teacher's question directly.

Fuyutski frowned slightly, and as he thought about it, he soon realized that the Flash wasn't a topic he was particularly knowledgeable about.

The two previous people to be known as the Flash, Jay Garrick and Barry Allen, were well known in America, and still revered in Keystone City and Central City. However, their celebrity was very limited outside the United States, especially since both of them had been dead for many years now.

_Which is probably why the staff of that rag mag decided to call someone with super speed dressed in red 'the Whizzer,'_ Fuyutski mused.

"I don't know much, I suppose," the old professor confessed.

"Mm," Gendo grunted, folding his gloved hands before his face. "Then I suppose you don't know that Allen was capable of vibrating his molecules in a certain way that rendered him both invisible and intangible."

Fuyutski blinked. "No, I didn't know that."

Gendo nodded. "It was an ability he didn't use often, but he _could_ do it. If this new incarnation of the Flash has the same powers, and she learns how to use them…"

"She could infiltrate the base with impunity, and we'd never even know," Fuyutski said, as the reason Gendo was so perturbed by this new development began to dawn on him. "Still, do you really think this girl would do such a thing? What reason would she have to sneak in here?"

The Commander all but rolled his eyes at the question. "Fuyutski, if you lived in a city where an organization as secretive as NERV resided, and you were an adventurous teenager with the ability to sneak in and have a look without getting caught, wouldn't you?"

"Good point," Fuyutski conceded.

"Indeed," Gendo said. "Even worse than the Flash merely discovering NERV secrets would be if she decided to personally interfere with the Scenario. She could do an immense amount of damage with her abilities."

"So what are you going to do?" Fuyutski asked.

"This new Flash is an x-factor in the scenario that cannot be tolerated," Gendo proclaimed. "She must be eliminated."

"Ikari…that girl's sixteen, at the absolute oldest," Fuyutski pointed out in a quiet voice.

"And the pilots are all fourteen," Gendo replied curtly.

The older man sighed. "How do you intend to…eliminate her, anyway?"

"There are ways," Gendo said with a small smile. He pressed a button on his desk, switching on an intercom. "I want Captain Chiron to come to my office. Now."

"Yes, sir," the Commander's secretary replied.

"What are you planning?" Fuyutski asked.

Gendo just continued to smile knowingly.

"You know, I think you've come to like being enigmatic simply for the sake of it," Fuyutski commented crossly.

Unsurprisingly, Gendo didn't deign to offer a response to that. Less than ten minutes later, the door to the cavernous office opened to admit the Chief of Section Two, NERV's secret police and bodyguard force.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" the big man asked, striding across the floor toward Gendo's desk.

"Yes," the Commander said. "I plan to assemble a very…unique taskforce for a very important task. The members of this group will come from Section Two."

Chiron's eyes flicked to the wall monitor, which still showed photographs of the Flash. It didn't take him long to figure out what the important task Gendo wanted accomplished was.

"Very well," he said. "I'll personally pick out some of my best men."

"No." Gendo said.

Chiron frowned in confusion. "Sir?"

"I don't want the best for this, Captain," Gendo said. "For this, I require the _damaged_. I need men who have endured great loss in the lives, preferably loss they themselves are responsible for in some fashion."

The Chief of Section Two was completely bewildered by the command, but he wasn't foolish enough to question an order from Commander Ikari.

"Yes, sir," he said.

Gendo nodded. "You are dismissed, Captain."

With a small bow, Chiron spun on his heel and had soon exited the Commander's office. The moment the door closed after him, Fuyutski turned to Gendo to ask what that had been about.

Only to discover that Gendo had picked up the phone hidden in one of his desk's drawers and was already dialing.

"I need to see about acquiring certain items that are currently stored at the evidence lockup facility in Keystone City," he informed Fuyutski. "It would probably be best if you turned your attention to your own duties."

Recognizing the obvious dismissal, Fuyutski rose from his chair and headed toward the door, barely suppressing a sigh of exasperation as he went.

_Enigmatic for the sake of being enigmatic,_ he mused, disgruntled as he left the huge office.

* * *

"Ninety-nine red balloons, floating in the summer sky! Panic bells, it's red alert! There's something here from somewhere else! The war machine, it springs to life, opens up one eager eye! Focusing on the spy, as _ninety-nine_ _red balloons go by_!"

Standing in the karaoke bar, Shinji watched with an amused expression on his face as Mari belted out the lyrics to the song. The Fourth Child had a nice singing voice. It wasn't spectacular; she never could have become a pop idol, but she was still pleasant to listen to.

Her dancing, on the other hand, was less than graceful (to put it mildly), despite her obvious enthusiasm. However, Mari's almost wild movements and gyrations were causing certain…rather developed parts of her anatomy to bounce about in ways that every male in the place found more than a little interesting. As a result, the audience was cheering her on with great gusto despite her somewhat strange and overzealous performance.

"…if I could find a souvenir, just to prove the world was here…and here it is: a red balloon. I think of you and let it go," Mari finished up the song a minute or two later.

There was a raucous round of applause from the males present (and a round of exasperated sighs from the females), as well as several calls for an encore.

Mari bowed. "Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week!" she said. "Try the veal, and don't forget to tip your waitress!"

Shinji frowned, mildly confused. This place didn't have any veal, or waitresses for that matter. It just had a snack bar that served candy and other junk food. He ended up shrugging it off as one more instance of the Fourth Child's benign strangeness.

Ignoring the pleas for another performance, Mari stepped off the stage and approached Shinji. "That was cool," she proclaimed, "but I really worked up an appetite! Let's go grab a snack!"

Shinji, who by now had completely resigned himself to simply going along with the whims of the Fourth Child, whatever they might be, simply nodded and followed her toward the snack bar. He watched, aghast but silent as she got herself three large orders of French fries and the biggest soda they had available. Shinji himself got a bottle of water and a small candy bar.

Taking their food (Shinji had to help Mari carry hers), the two found a table and started to eat. The Third Child watched with wide eyes and a sense of morbid fascination as Mari proceeded to utterly _inhale_ the French fries before her, pausing only long enough to liberally douse them with ketchup.

_I guess it's true what people say about the Americans' eating habits,_ Shinji mused as he nibbled on his candy bar.

"Oh, that was good!" Mari said as she finished with her 'snack,' placing a hand on her flat belly.

Shinji said nothing, silently wondering how in the world she was able to maintain her figure if she always ate so much.

Apparently realizing that he didn't plan on saying anything, Mari leaned across the table, bring her face uncomfortably close to his. This time, though, she didn't sniff him, which he definitely considered fortunate.

"Having fun?" she asked, unperturbed by the way he reflexively pulled back from her.

"Sure," he lied.

Mari grinned, and he somehow knew she'd seen right through him. "No you're not," she said. "How could you? You've just been watching me this whole time. Why don't you go up there and sing?"

"Oh, no, I couldn't do that," Shinji protested. "I'm not very good. I'll look foolish."

Mari smirked. "You don't think I looked a little foolish up there?" she asked.

Shinji blinked in surprise. The Third Child had believed that Mari was genuinely oblivious to how silly she'd appeared. "Wait, if you knew that you…?" he trailed off, not wanting to say out loud that she had looked foolish, even though she had just said as much herself.

"If I knew I looked stupid, then why did I do it?" Mari asked the question for him. "Simple: because it was _fun_."

"Oh," was all Shinji said.

He couldn't imagine happily making a fool of himself for his own amusement; he didn't think he was even _capable_ of it.

Mari's grin widened. "You worry too much about looking silly, Puppy-kun," she commented. "Odds are, you're probably never going to see anyone in here again after today. Except for me, of course, but if I tell everybody that you looked dumb while singing, you can tell everybody that _I_ looked dumb while singing. So loosen up for a little while. Have fun."

Shinji looked up at the stage dubiously. "I don't know…" he said reluctantly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Why not?" Mari asked. "You don't have to dance around like I did if you don't want to. Just let go for a few minutes and sing."

"It's just…I've never…before…" Shinji stammered, his right hand twitching in that nervous tic of his.

Mari frowned for a second, confused. Then comprehension dawned, as her eyes widened. "_You've __**never**__ done __karaoke__ before?_" she exclaimed, shocked.

"No," Shinji said.

"Why not?" she demanded. "Puppy-kun, being able to sing karaoke in public is one of the best things about being in Japan! It's right up there with all you can eat sushi places and being able to buy panties from vending machines!"

Shinji frowned, once again confounded by the Fourth Child. After seeing her chow down on those fries, he wasn't the least bit surprised that she viewed all you can eat places very highly, but the other thing…

"Um, I'm pretty sure those machines aren't really intended to be used by girls," he said slowly.

"Don't be silly Puppy-kun, _boys_ don't wear panties," Mari said, as though he was being very dim.

Denise Miles would have immediately realized that Mari was just _playing_ dumb here, but Shinji didn't know the Fourth Child nearly as well. So he couldn't quite tell whether she was kidding or not.

"Oh…right," he said, his voice almost too faint to be heard in the noisy karaoke bar.

Mari smirked. "So? Go up there and sing already," she urged.

Still, he hesitated.

"Listen, if you get nervous, just imagine that everybody in the audience is in their _underwear,_" Mari suggested in a loud faux whisper.

This sounded like the most bizarre piece of advice ever to Shinji, but all the same, he relented. He knew he had _no_ chance of winning this contest of wills.

That, and he thought his brain could use a break from the Fourth Child.

Defeated, Shinji sighed softly and headed up to the stage. The current singer was just finishing up, and there was no one waiting to replace her. Shinji swore silently; he would have welcomed a reprieve, no matter how brief.

The young woman finished her song and then handed the microphone to him. Shinji nervously went up on stage, intensely conscious of the many eyes watching him. He scrolled through the list of songs available, trying to find one that he felt was suitable for him before everyone started wondering why the weirdo was taking so long to pick.

Luck was with him, mercifully, and he soon discovered one he felt was perfect. He picked the song, and a moment later, soft music was coming from the speakers.

_Oh god, I'm actually going to have to sing in a minute,_ he thought. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It didn't calm him down one bit.

_"Just imagine that everybody in the audience is in their underwear,"_ Mari's strange brand of wisdom echoed in his head.

Shinji mentally shrugged. What could it hurt at this point? He was about to completely humiliate himself anyway. He concentrated…

And to her immense surprise, he almost giggled, more at the whole idea than the mental picture. This big group of people going out, and making it all the way to the karaoke bar, in only their underwear? It was absurd!

A rare whimsical impulse gripping him, he started to picture the people present in the most ridiculous undergarments he could imagine. Boxers with little red hearts on them, briefs adorned with cartoon characters, and anything else he could imagine. He could feel his anxiety ebbing as he struggled not to laugh at the silly-stupid ideas in his head.

Then his gaze found the Fourth Child. The _very_ vivid mental image his brain instantly conjured up (working entirely without his permission), as well as the recent memory of Mari bouncing around on the stage he now stood upon, caused his face to flush. He quickly looked away from her.

_Geeze, what would she think if she knew I was imagining her in just her underwear?_ He thought, then he frowned. _Wait a minute, she was the one who gave me that idea in the first place!_

Shaking his head slightly and hoping everyone couldn't see the gesture, he was able to clear the errant thoughts from his mind. Shinji somehow managed to compose himself again just before the lyrics started to appear on the screen of the big karaoke machine.

And somehow, he made himself open his mouth and start singing. "Fly me to the Moon, and let me play among the stars…"

* * *

_Two hours later…_

"So, did you have fun?" Mari asked as the two of them walked home from the karaoke bar.

"Yeah, yeah, I did," Shinji replied.

The Fourth Child smirked. "You don't have to sound _that_ surprised about it," she remarked.

"Ah, sorry," he apologized. "I just didn't expect…it didn't really seem like my thing, I mean. Sorry."

Mari waved this off. "No, it's cool," she said. "I'm just happy that I converted you."

"Converted me?" Shinji asked.

"C'mon, don't pretend that you didn't catch the karaoke bug," Mari grinned. "You got up there and sang three more songs."

"Well, I guess I…"

"I can just see it now," Mari continued as though she hadn't heard him. "Fresh from his career as a dashing Evangelion pilot, Shinji Ikari rises to the top of the charts as Japan's next great pop singer!"

"Mari, quit teasing me," he groaned, evicting a giggle from her.

He was apparently a decent singer; he was good enough to get some applause out of the crowd at the karaoke bar, if not nearly as much as Mari received every time she went on stage. However, he knew that he was nowhere near good enough to become a professional singer, even if he'd wanted to pursue such a career. Which he didn't.

"Okay, okay," Mari said, "but you _do_ admit that you enjoyed it and had fun, right?"

Shinji nodded. "Yeah."

He didn't think he'd do karaoke again, but he had surprised himself by enjoying it, to the point that he was glad Mari had cajoled him into hanging out with her.

Mari chuckled. "So I kept my promise then, didn't I, Puppy-kun?" she asked triumphantly.

"Yeah, you did," Shinji admitted. "Hey, are you ever going to stop calling me that?"

"Nope," Mari answered, grinning cheerfully at him.

Shinji sighed. "How did I know you were going to say that?" he asked.

"Maybe you're psychic," Mari suggested. "Here, I'll think of a number between one and ten, and you tell me what it is."

Shinji paused for a moment. "Eleven," he said.

Mari gave him a look of such wide eyed shock in response, that Shinji momentarily believed she actually _had_ been thinking of eleven. Then she broke out laughing, and he realized she'd been teasing him again. He was so surprised that he allowed a few chuckles to escape him in response.

The two of them reached the apartment building that Mari now called home, and it was time for the two of them to part ways. Shinji suddenly felt very awkward for reasons he couldn't quite define.

"Well, it was cool getting to know you a little better, Puppy-kun," Mari said. "Let's hang out again sometime."

"Yeah," Shinji agreed, though he was secretly less than enthusiastic about the idea of doing it again. Once was enough for him.

Smirking in a knowing sort of way, Mari gave the Third Child a quick wave and then entered her apartment building. Forgoing the elevator, the Fourth Child zipped up the stairs at a speed that was _just_ below superhuman, soon arriving at the door to the new apartment she and Jessie shared.

"I'm home!" Mari called far more loudly than necessary as she entered, startling her guardian.

"Well, you certainly took your sweet time," Jessie grumbled, "leaving little old me to work on unpacking."

When they'd first reported to him, Commander Ikari had _said_ he was giving them two days to get settled in. However, while Mari had been exempt from school for those two days, they hadn't been pardoned from anything else. As a result, Mari had spent most of that time in a test plug. Jessie had had to make sure that NERV Central's technicians had made the proper arrangements for the provincial Evangelion Unit.

And their apartment was packed with cardboard boxes, most of them still unopened.

"Hey, I was on an important mission," Mari protested, "besides, I already have _my_ stuff all unpacked."

Jessie narrowed her eyes, again vowing to eventually figure out how her charge had managed to get her room in order so quickly.

However, she set that mystery aside for the moment. "So I take it you were with the Ikari boy all this time, then?" she asked. "How did you get him to spend so many hours with you?"

"I simply introduced myself in a polite fashion, and he was instantly taken by my natural charm," Mari answered.

Jessie groaned. "You did the smell thing and then dragged him off somewhere, didn't you?"

"Hey, it worked," Mari replied.

"Good, so when do you plan on preparing a preliminary report for the Commander?" Jessie asked.

"I'll get to it tomorrow," Mari vowed.

* * *

"I'm home," Shinji called as he entered the apartment where he currently resided, carefully taking his shoes off and placing them on the mat by the door.

He walked out of the apartment's small entrance hall, then jumped when he abruptly found himself face to face with his guardian. Shinji hadn't expected anyone else to be home and had announced himself merely out of habit. He must have stayed out longer than he'd thought.

"So, where have you been?" Misato asked him, crossing her arms. She was smiling, but her smile had a definite edge to it.

"Um, I was out with Mari, er, I mean, Makinami," the Third Child stammered, feeling like a tiny mouse caught beneath the gaze of hungry cat. "She felt that she should get to know the other pilots, or something, and she decided to start with me, I guess."

Misato's demeanor relaxed at once, and she uncrossed her arms, a wide smile forming on her face.

_Out of the frying pan and into the fire,_ Shinji thought, holding back a groan. He knew only too well what was coming when his guardian wore _that_ sort of smile.

"Oh, _I see_," Misato said. "Hanging out with the lovely Pilot Makinami, are we? And already on a first name basis, too, by the sound of it! I had no idea you could work so fast, Shinji-kun!"

"M-Misato! It's nothing like _that_, really!" Shinji exclaimed, growing more flustered by the second. "She just didn't want to be formal. You know how Westerners are…"

"No, how _**are**_ we, baka?" the Second Child demanded, and Shinji only belatedly realized that Asuka was sitting on the couch, reading a magazine.

Shinji swallowed. "Um, l-less concerned with formalities?" he offered fearfully.

Asuka glared daggers at him for a painfully long moment, then buried her nose in her magazine again. Shinji sagged with relief.

And Misato immediately pounced again. She leaned close to him in a way that strongly reminded him of Mari's various invasions of his personal space, then spoke in a faux whisper. "C'mon, Shinji-kun, you can tell me what really happened. About how you decided that you just _had_ to have Mari Illustrious Makinami from the moment you first saw her, then how you _swept_ her off her feet this afternoon to—"

"Misato! _Please…_" Shinji begged.

But the purple-haired woman was having far too much fun to stop there. Standing up straight and abandoning any pretense of conspiratorial whispering, she continued. "I guess I can't really blame a teenage boy like you for being attracted to someone like Mari."

"Huh?" Shinji blinked, confused enough by the comment that he forgot to deny being attracted to Mari.

Misato's grin widened; she had been hoping Shinji would ask her to elaborate. "Well, let me just say that I could barely believe how much Mari's figure had ballooned since I last saw her!" she said, then used both hands to heft her own impressive chest, to ensure that Shinji knew _exactly_ what she meant.

The Third Child was briefly mesmerized by the display Misato was putting on. Then he snapped back to reality, turning his gaze away and blushing so deeply he almost turned purple.

"M-Misato!"

"If that girl can keep it up, she'll be putting even_ me_ to shame in a few years!" his guardian continued relentlessly. "You really need to hang onto that one, Shinki-kun!"

"Oh, mein Gott!" Asuka exclaimed disgustedly. "Misato, you're an even bigger pervert than the baka is!"

"Oh, don't pretend you're not jealous, Asuka," Misato teased.

The purple-haired woman had meant to imply that the Second Child was feeling envious of Mari's rapidly developing bust. However, the redhead chose to interpret that remark in an entirely different way.

"Of Mari? _Please_," Asuka said. "She's completely nuts! The baka's probably just thankful that he _survived_ the whole experience!"

A frown appeared on Misato's face and her attitude became somewhat more serious. "I thought you two were friends," she said.

"We didn't exactly see each other enough over the years to become friends. I respect her; she's a worthy Evangelion pilot, unlike _some_ people," she directed a glare at Shinji before continuing. "She's got guts to spare, even if she is immature and crazy. But we're not really friends, no."

"Hmm, well, maybe you can get closer now that you're both stationed in the same place," Misato said thoughtfully.

"Maybe," Asuka replied in a dubious tone.

While the Second Child might be more amenable to the idea of really becoming friends with Mari later, at the moment it was the last thing she wanted to do. She was angry at Mari for threatening her 'Most Popular Girl in School' status, and for other reasons she couldn't (or didn't want to) to define.

With a dark scowl etched onto her face, Asuka again turned her attention to her magazine, ignoring the way Shinji was slinking away to his room, as though that made him stealthy rather than just pathetic.

_Well_, _at least Mari has __**no **__chance of winning our little bet,_ Asuka consoled herself.

* * *

Five Days Later…

_To: Commander Joseph Wells, NERV-America (Bethany Base)_

_From: Pilot Mari Illustrious Makinami, NERV-Central (Tokyo-3)_

_Dear Commander Wells,_

_I hope this message finds you well. I myself am settling into my new surroundings and duties quite comfortably. I have not forgotten the special task you assigned me in addition to my responsibilities as an Evangelion pilot, and America's sole front line soldier in this war. In fact, I have been working on it for some time now. While it is premature to offer you any solid conclusions, I can offer you some preliminary findings._

_Shinji Ikari is a nice boy, a quiet boy, and a generally timid boy. None of these qualities would indicate that he has received years' worth of military style training in Evangelion piloting, such as Pilot Soryu and myself have had. Indeed, it is hard for me to even imagine him inside Evangelion Unit One while it destroyed the Third Angel, or while it viciously stabbed the Fourth despite being impaled itself._

_Simply put, my initial impression of the Third Child so far is that he is exactly what those in charge of NERV Central have stated he is: a boy who was not raised to be an Evangelion pilot and who was, essentially, drafted in a time of crisis. _

_If Commander Ikari indeed told the truth regarding Pilot Ikari's lack of prior training, then how the Third Child was able to achieve such a high synchronization ratio on his first try is still a mystery. I would speculate that NERV Central might be much further along in the development of the Dummy System than they have reported, or_

Mari stopped typing here, not sure of what else to say. Sighing, she read what she had written so far and immediately decided that she hated it.

Though, really, that wasn't surprising, since Mari generally hated writing, period. All the snappy comments she was always coming up with somehow lost a lot of their punch when she put them down on paper, and she had time to wonder if it was _really_ such a good idea to convey those comments, anyway.

So she took them out, but the result was a painfully stilted and awkward message.

_This sucks,_ she thought. She wished she could put this off, but it had been days since she had hung out with Shinji, and she knew Commander Wells enough to realize he'd expect a report very soon.

After a moment's consideration, she deleted 'nice' from the list of adjectives she used to describe Shinji, then took out her groundless speculation about the Dummy System, too.

_That probably doesn't belong,_ she thought. _Besides, the 'nice' bit isn't really relevant. Makes it seem like people who have gotten military training can't be nice, and if that was true, I wouldn't have such a sparkling personality._

That thought brought a smirk to her face, but it quickly faded as she turned her attention back to her report.

Mari was thinking about deleting the whole message and starting over when her cell phone went off. Frowning, the bespectacled girl reached into her school bag and began to root around for it. Given all of the clutter she had already filled her bag with, she was tempted to kick into speed mode just to save time.

The Fourth Child was just about to give in to that temptation when the door to her room burst open and Jessie entered, halfway through shrugging into her red uniform jacket.

"Jessie? What are you—?"

"What, you didn't get the message?" the lieutenant asked. "The MAGI have detected a blue pattern. We have to get to the base. Now."

_Yes! Show time!_ Mari thought gleefully.

"Aye, aye, ma'am!" the Fourth Child exclaimed, snapping into a smart salute.

Jessie rolled her eyes. "Move your butt, Mari, it's time to go save the world."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Originally, I was going to make the title of this chapter "Adjusting to Tokyo-3." But let's get real here. Mari doesn't adjust to Tokyo-3, Tokyo-3 adjusts to her!

Anyway, this was a pretty straightforward chapter, focusing on Mari and Shinji getting to know each other a bit, and I don't really have much to say about that part, except that Mari continues to be extremely fun to write.

It seemed inevitable to me that Jessie would end up coming off as something of a Misato clone, regardless of their differing personalities. So I decided to embrace that rather than try and escape it, and tied their personal histories together. The Losers is actually a group from the DC universe, though I made quite a few changes to make it possible for Misato and Jessie to have been in it. Misato and Jessie's adventures prior to the events of NGE would make a pretty good side story, but I don't have the time to write it.

Oh, and I made a little tweak to the last chapter so Mari's decision to leave the plane with a parachute actually makes sense now.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta readers as well. Now from some fun!

Omakes!

* * *

Whoopsie

"So if you don't want to be the Whizzer, what should we call you?"

The scarlet speedster grinned, then placed her fists on her hips and thrust her chest out, striking her best heroic pose. All that was missing was a gust of wind to blow her brown locks about. "I'm the Flash," she said.

"Right, we'll make sure everybody knows that. Say, do you think you could give us an interview?"

She glanced at the clock. "I can't do it today," she said. "I have places to go, people to see, but...how about I come back here on Sunday and you can take me out to lunch?"

"Done!"

* * *

_The next Sunday…_

"Wait, so you were bitten by a radioactive bedbug?" a very confused tabloid reporter asked, looking up from the mess that was his notes.

The Flash didn't immediately offer a response, mostly because she was busily slurping down noodles. However, she finished with the bowl in record time, setting it down along with several dozen other empty vessels.

"Yup!" she said. "That activated my native superpowers."

"The…the ones you have because you're from the planet, uh, Speedton?"

"That's right!" the Flash said, then motioned to one of the waiters. "Hey! Keep it coming!"

"And you left Speedton because…?"

"My parents put me in a rocket ship and sent me away because the planet was about to be eaten by the planet eater Fatlactacus. Ooo, tuna sushi!" she added as a waiter brought her more food.

The flustered reporter looked through his notes as she gobbled down the next serving, his expression becoming increasingly confused.

"But you were captured by this, uh, Fatlactacus, correct?"

"Oh, yeah," the Flash said as she finished up the sushi and gestured for more. "I was forced to be his herald for a while, but then I was rescued by the Lavender Nightlight Corps and brought here."

"Um, okay…what was the importance of the time you went up into space and got bombarded with cosmic gamma radiation, again?"

"Hey, more udon!" the Flash called, then turned back to the reported. "Sorry, what did you say?"

The hapless tabloid reporter did his best not to burst out into tears.

_At least the magazine is picking up the check…_ He consoled himself.

* * *

_The next Monday…_

"Whoa! What happened here?" the Flash exclaimed, stopping as she passed by the _Tokyo Tattler's _building.

Or former building. The signs advertising the tabloid's presence were gone, replaced with "For Rent" bulletins.

She didn't expect anyone to answer her, but a voice came from nearby.

"They went bankrupt because of the _massive_ bill you racked up when they took you out to lunch!"

The Flash turned to see a girl wearing a white leotard and a long red cape. Several other costume women stood alongside her, none of them looking very happy.

"Um, hey," the Flash greeted nervously. "What's up?"

"What's up?" Power Girl echoed angrily. "The more legitimate papers are still embarrassed to write about us. With the _Tattler_ gone, there's no one around to tell everyone how awesome we are! And it's all your fault!"

"Heh, well," the Flash said, breaking out into a sweat. "I guess that's my cue to exit!"

And with that, the Flash took off, becoming a red blur wreathed in golden lightning.

"After her, ladies!" Power Girl yelled, and all the other Superwomen of Eva (2) took off in pursuit of the Flash.

* * *

That Actually Happens?

"_You've __**never**__ done __karaoke__ before?_" Mari exclaimed, shocked.

"No," Shinji said.

"Why not?" she demanded. "Puppy-kun, being able to sing karaoke in public is one of the best things about being in Japan! It's right up there with all you can eat sushi places and being able to buy panties from vending machines!"

"Um, I'm pretty sure those machines aren't really intended to be used by girls," he said slowly.

"Hmm, that would explain _that_," Mari remarked thoughtfully.

Shinji just _knew_ that he'd regret asking, but he somehow couldn't help himself. "That explains what?"

"Oh, I got myself some vending machine panties," Mari said. "I wore them today, but they were _really_ uncomfortable, so I took them off when I went to the bathroom before."

Shinji's eyes widened. _Wait a minute, if she did that, then that means…_

His eyes drifted down to Mari's rather short skirt.

And then blood _erupted_ from his nose, causing to Mari to yelp. Seemingly unconscious, Shinji face planted right onto the table.

"Oh my gosh!" Mari exclaimed. "Japanese boys _actually do that?_ I thought that only happened in anime!"

* * *

Ladies, Start your Engines! _By Ultra Sonic 007_

(Mike313's note: This makes more sense if you've read his fic, "Mobile Fighter Evangelion." It's a fun read, so I'd suggest you do just that.)

_Huh. Denise wasn't kidding._

In the months since arriving at Tokyo-3, Mari – with all the trials and tribulations that she had endured as the Flash – had refined and grown in her powers. One of the niftiest, in her opinion, was the ability to vibrate her molecules to walk through walls.

However, her friend had informed her that her predecessors had developed their ability so well that they could change their 'vibrational frequency' and traverse alternate realities. Odd, yes, but Mari hadn't found any reason to doubt her friend.

Especially since it was true. Even though she was clearly standing in Tokyo-3, the air was somehow…cleaner. This place lacked the aura of menace that seemed to hang over the Tokyo-3 she knew. _Maybe Commander Ikari isn't a bastard in this place._

HAH! Yeah right. That was about as likely as Asuka being moe.

_**Vroom**_.

The growling of an engine prompted Mari to turn around, finally noticing that she was in the middle of a street at an intersection. A woman looking exactly like the Operations Director had pulled up beside her at the red light. However, instead of the blue Alpine Renault that Mari was familiar with, THIS woman was driving a sleek motorcycle painted red.

The Flash grinned. "Nice bike!"

Lieutenant Colonel Misato Katsuragi smirked. "Thanks. Nice outfit!"

"Well, _I_ think it fits."

The two kept on staring at each other. For some reason, a strange glimmer came to Misato's eyes…as she revved her engine.

The hint was obvious. _A race, huh?_ Mari couldn't help but smile; sure, there was no way the bike – no matter how sweet it looked – would be able to keep up, but the simple idea of Misato wanting to race the Flash was grin-inducing.

True to form, the scarlet speedster leaned down, fingertips pressing against the asphalt as if ready to sprint.

Misato grinned as she pressed a black button on her dashboard; it bore the symbol of a lightning bolt.

Needless to say, Mari was shocked – no pun intended – when she saw arcs of yellow electricity crackle across the bike. _A vehicle that can access the Speed Force?_

The lieutenant colonel grinned at her soon-to-be competitor, the Speed Force field emitted by her bike affecting her as well. "Compliments of NERV-Alaska!"

…_oh HELL yes_. The Flash's grin stretched from ear-to-ear. _This is gonna be __**fun**_. "First one to Osaka-2 and back?"

"You're on!" roared Misato as her engine growled.

The traffic light flashed green.

The two speedsters were gone in the blink of an eye.


	6. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Five:** Racing the Sky

The first thing Jessie noticed when she stepped inside the NERV base's Tactical Planning Room was that it was _big_. The one at Bethany Base was like a broom closet in comparison.

_Of course, we never really had a whole lot of use for one in Bethany,_ she mused as she looked around, taking in the several large screens that were mounted on the far wall. _After all, the one time an Angel did attack there, we didn't have a whole lot of time to strategize. Still, does Ikari think that he'll need to brief a whole battalion at once someday?_

The Lieutenant was tempted to ask Misato just that, but before she could, the door opened and the four Evangelion pilots filed inside, each of them still wearing their school uniforms. Jessie, whose mind had always had a tendency to race whenever she was nervous, noticed that Mari was still in her uniform from Johnson's Memorial. She briefly wondered how long Tokyo-3 Junior High would let her get away with that before she forced herself to focus.

"I'm glad you were so prompt," Misato greeted them. There was no trace of the purple-haired woman's "party girl" side (or "shore leave Misato," as Jessie privately referred to that aspect of her friend's personality) on display at the moment.

The Ops Director was all business, and the pilots couldn't help but notice.

"What's the situation?" Asuka asked.

Misato picked up a small remote control from a nearby table and pressed a button on it. One of the screens behind her came to life, displaying the image of what looked like a giant ameba with two appendages coming off either side of the central mass. The middle section looked quite a lot like an eye, with the ruby core at the center serving as the pupil.

"Less than an hour ago, we detected this in orbit over the Indian Ocean," Misato said. "Since then, it's been dropping portions of its own body down at the Earth. Most of them have been hitting the ocean, but the last one impacted the shoreline." She pressed a button on the remote again, and another screen came to life, displaying a series of still shots. Most were of the significant waves that the Angel's projectiles had created upon falling into the sea, while the last one showed an enormous crater in the beach.

"We believe that the Angel is doing this in order to give itself reference points for targeting purposes, since each projectile has been closer to Tokyo-3 than the last." Jessie added.

Misato nodded. "The MAGI estimate that there is a 94 percent chance the Angel will send its entire body hurling at us, once it's sure it's close enough."

"What happens if it hits us?" Shinji asked, incapable of keeping a worried tone out of his voice.

"This Angel is enormous, and it's been using its AT field to increase its destructive force even further," Misato replied. "Even a near miss would cause this whole area to become a part of the Pacific Ocean."

Mari let out a low whistle. "So what's the plan?"

Misato smiled. "You're going to catch it," she answered, as though it was the simplest thing in the world.

"_What?_" Asuka exclaimed. "You mean, in our _hands?_" She opened her fingers and looked down at her palm dubiously.

"That's right," the Ops Director confirmed.

"You can't be serious!" Asuka barked.

Misato's eyes hardened as she crossed her arms. "I'm _completely_ serious, Asuka," she said, a stern tone in her voice. Almost immediately, however, she softened. "I won't lie to you all. This is an _extremely_ dangerous mission. In fact, I've already ordered that the city and all the base's nonessential personnel evacuate, because of how likely it is that city will sustain massive damage. In light of all that, I will not order you to do this. Any or all of you may refuse this mission if you wish."

The pilots were all silent for a moment.

Then Mari smirked. "Hell, I've never declined a mission yet. I'm not about to start now," she said jauntily. "After all, I just got here!"

"Well, _I'm_ certainly not going to run away," Asuka huffed.

Shinji swallowed. "I'm in," he said, though he looked rather green as the words passed his lips.

Rei just nodded silently.

"All right, then," Misato said, uncrossing her arms as ghost of a smile broke through her professional facade. "Now, the Angel is somehow using its AT field to disrupt both our monitoring satellites and ground-based sensors. As a result, the MAGI are unable to calculate exactly where the Angel will land. Instead, they can only tell us that it'll come down somewhere within this area."

She pressed a button on her remote control again, and the largest screen shifted from the image of the Angel to a tactical map of the Greater Toyko-3 Area. The Angel's potential landing zone was highlighted in red.

Asuka's eyes widened. "That's a huge area to cover!"

"I'm aware of that, but it's what we've got," Misato said curtly. She fiddled with her remote a bit more, and three blue dots appeared within the red area. "Units Zero, One, and Two will be stationed here, here, and here." She pointed at the map. "Once the Angel gets within visual range, you three will head off. Your mission is to catch the Angel before it can land and then kill it."

"What about me?" Mari asked, displeased at her apparent lack of a role.

"Unfortunately, Unit Five's size and nonstandard configuration make it impossible for it to use the regular EVA lifts," Jessie said. "There are only a handful of places in the area where we _can_ deploy it, in fact, and none of them are exactly ideal for this."

Misato pressed another button, and half dozen green dots appeared on the map. None of them were very close to the blue ones. In fact, half of them weren't even within the area that was highlighted in red.

"To be honest with you, Mari, it's likely that this battle will be over before you can get to the Angel," Misato confessed. "However, I still want you and your Unit Five topside, just in case we _do_ need you. Therefore, you're going to be deployed there." She pointed to a green dot located just outside the city limits.

"Oh," Mari said, her shoulders slumping in obvious disappointment. "Rats."

"Any other questions?" Misato asked.

"How did you determine where to station the standard Evangelions?" Rei asked.

Misato scowled, displeased at having to admit this. "Women's intuition," she said, glaring at the pilots as though _daring_ them to protest her methods.

Asuka made a face.

"Misato plays the lottery all the time," Shinji said to the redhead, speaking very quietly out of the corner of his mouth, "and she _never_ wins."

"Then she's due for a jackpot!" Mari said, clapping her hands together. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling _lucky!_"

The Second Child shot the brunette a look that clearly expressed how insane she thought Mari was. The Fourth Child chose not to notice.

"Any _other_ questions?" Misato asked. When the pilots were silent, she added, "There is one more thing. Given how dangerous this mission is, regulations say that each of you should write a will before you depart."

"I do not need a will," Rei said. "There's no point."

"That's right!" Asuka agreed with a defiant scowl. "I'm coming back from this in one piece!"

"Y-Yeah," Shinji said, seeming to draw confidence from his fellow pilot's certainty. "Me, too."

"I'm _way_ too busy to die," Mari said. "Besides, all my stuff is in Tokyo-3. It'll all get blown to bits if we fail, so what's the point of a will?"

With the exception of Rei, everyone gave Mari a rather dirty look for this less than encouraging rejoinder. However, the newest addition to NERV Central's team of EVA pilots gave no indication that she noticed at all. Indeed, there was a gleam of manic excitement in her blue eyes, and she was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. It was obvious that she was not just willing, but _eager_ for this battle.

Misato cleared her throat, getting everyone's attention back on her. "I'm proud of you all," she said, "and if you succeed…no, _when_ you succeed, I'm taking you all out to a steak dinner."

"Cool!" Mari said.

"Really? Wow!" Shinji said.

"That's so nice of you, Misato," Asuka added, smiling sweetly.

"Just to let you all know," Jessie piped up, "I'll be splitting the check with Misato, so she won't go broke paying for it…even though she makes more money than me," she added under her breath.

Misato threw a scowl in the lieutenant's direction, then turned back to the pilots. "All right, Jessie and I have to go iron out a few last-minute details," she said. "All of you, get changed and report to the cages."

The pilots nodded, and the two officers departed, leaving them alone. Once they were gone, the sunny smiles Shinji and Asuka had donned in response to Misato's last announcement fell away.

"A steak dinner is supposed to impress us?" Shinji asked dubiously.

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Man, the Second Impact generation was really deprived," she commented. "I mean, if a little chunk of meat is such a big deal to them…"

"Aw, c'mon, you mean you guys aren't looking forward to the victory dinner at all?" Mari asked, still grinning cheerfully.

Asuka just rolled her eyes in response, while Shinji gave the Fourth Child a look of mild surprise. "I wouldn't expect _you_ to think it's a big deal," he remarked. "I thought you Americans ate beef all the time."

"We do, and I haven't had any since getting to Japan. I need my fix!" Mari said. "Besides, no offense, but I seriously think you could use some more red meat in your diet, Puppy-kun." She punctuated the statement with a friendly punch to Shinji's arm, which caused him to wince and gingerly rub the spot where she'd hit him.

_Geeze, she's strong,_ he thought, suppressing a grimace. Then he almost smirked as another thought occurred to him. _Maybe it's from all the red meat._

"Wait a minute," Asuka said, causing Shinji to turn to her. "_Puppy-kun?_"

The redhead looked like Christmas had come early, which was more than enough to inspire the desire to retreat within Shinji. "Well, I should probably get changed," he announced. "I'll you guys at the cage!"

With that, he hastily exited from the room, leaving the trio of girls alone.

Asuka rubbed her hands together. "Oh, this is gonna be good," she commented to no one in particular, a wicked grin on her face.

Mari ignored her, turning to Rei. "So, what are you gonna get tonight, Rei?" she asked.

"I will not be going to dinner with all of you," she said.

Mari frowned. "Why not?"

"I dislike eating meat."

"Aw, c'mon, girl! I'm sure they'll have something vegetarian for you to eat. After all, we're in the land where tofu was invented!" Mari proclaimed.

A large drop of sweat appeared on the back of Asuka's head. "I think that's China, actually…"

Mari waved this trivial detail off, draping an arm over Rei's shoulders and pulling the First Child into a tight embrace. The gesture actually managed to get a startled look from the normally placid EVA pilot. "You'll come with us, won't you, Rei?" Mari asked.

"…very well," Rei answered slowly, looking rather uncomfortable.

"Cool," the bespectacled pilot said, finally releasing Ayanami. "Now let's go get changed. The sooner we send that Angel back to hell, the sooner we get to eat steak!"

* * *

Meanwhile, Misato and Jessie were _not_ smoothing out last minute wrinkles in the operation, largely because there weren't really any of those to worry about. With the evacuation of the city nearly completed already, there simply wasn't much for them to do.

_My plan might be crazy, but at least it's simple,_ Misato thought, studying her reflection in the mirror of the women's restroom. _Hell, next to Operation Yashima, it's child's play._

Next to her, Jessie turned on one of the taps, then cupped her hands under the stream of cool water, letting it pool in them. After a few seconds, she splashed her face with it.

Misato waited until she'd dried off with a towel before speaking. "So what's wrong?"

"Huh?"

"You've been pretty quiet ever since I told you about my plan," Misato observed. "Unusually quiet. I take it you're not too happy with the operation?"

Jessie stared at her reflection, not meeting Misato's eyes. "I'm not sure it's exactly appropriate for me to be voicing my opinion on my superior officer's battle plans," she said guardedly.

The purple haired woman put her hand on Jessie's arm, and the gesture finally got the blonde to look at her. "Then forget for a minute that I'm your superior officer, and the Operations Director," Misato said. "Talk to me like I'm your friend and old comrade in arms. You know, the one you once got stuck in enemy territory with for three weeks."

Jessie smiled ruefully. "Oh God, the Zanzibar mission," she groaned, shaking her head. "I don't think we ever had worse intel than we did going into _that_ mess."

"Probably not," Misato agreed. "So, spit it out already. Do you think I'm insane?"

"No, or at least, no more than you were back then," Jessie quipped, smirking.

"Ha, ha," Misato grumbled.

"But, no, I don't think you're crazy," Jessie said quietly, "I have faith in you, and in the pilots, especially Mari. Still…that doesn't mean I have to like it."

Of course, what she _really_ didn't like was sending Mari up to the surface in Unit Five when she probably wouldn't be able to do anything; Jessie would've much preferred evacuating the Fourth Child along with nearly everyone else in the city.

On a purely intellectual level, she realized that NERV did indeed need every possible edge it could get, given the odds against winning this battle. She also realized that her desire to get Mari to safety was rather selfish, yet cold hard facts didn't stop those desires.

"It's hard, isn't it?" Misato asked gently. "To send those kids out to fight this war for us."

Jessie shook her head and sighed. "After Zanzibar, you always could read me like a book," she said. "Yes, it's hard. I mean, Mari's already battled an Angel once already, but it showed up so abruptly that I really didn't have much time to worry before she was stabbing the thing with her prog lance."

"I understand," Misato said.

"So, when do you get used to it?" Jessie asked.

The Ops Director smiled slyly. "Well," she drawled, "when I find out, I'll let you know."

Jessie groaned loudly.

* * *

"So, Mari," Asuka began, "feeling a little down about this one?"

The pilot of Unit Five, who had just gotten out of her school uniform and was struggling into her unusual plugsuit, simply gave Asuka a confused look, for once caught by surprise and without a snappy comeback. Mari had intended to simply be in and out of the girl's locker room so she could get to her EVA more quickly, and the redhead's question had come from out of the blue.

Asuka smirked. "It's unlikely you'll actually get to do anything in this battle, Misato said so herself. When you're already so far behind me, that must be a real downer!"

Rei, who had been so silent that the other two girls had nearly forgotten she was there, paused to regard them. While she had not had much contact with Mari so far, their newest pilot seemed to be quite forward and obviously had no trouble asserting herself. Rei found herself quite curious about how the Fourth would react to Asuka's needling.

She was also just a tad _hopeful_ that Mari would take the redhead down a peg for it.

However, the brunette just grinned and placed her hands on her hips. "Don't count me out yet, of the battle _or_ the war," she said. "I still intend to win our little bet."

Rei's eyebrow went up at learning of the existence of this wager.

Asuka laughed. "Dream on! You'll _never_ catch up to me!" she proclaimed. "Your A-10 clips are gonna be mine."

Mari's grin only widened. "That's what you think. Red's really not my color, but I think I'll wear these around for a while after I win them from you," she said, tapping Asuka's hair clips.

The Second Child didn't seem at all convinced that there was any danger of her losing, but Mari didn't appear to care. The pilot of Unit Five finished getting into her plug suit, then pressed the button on the wrist. Her eyes bugged out slightly as it tightened around her form.

"Ugh, this thing's getting too small," she complained to no one in particular, "especially in the bust."

Asuka grumbled something inaudible under breath, which Mari completely ignored. "I'll see you at the cages," she told the others. "Asuka, make sure you don't get _my_ A-10 clips all scuffed up!"

She bolted from the locker room before the redhead could reply, so Asuka just heaved a long suffering sort of sigh as she turned back to the task of getting changed.

"Pilot Soryu?" Rei spoke up after a moment.

Asuka looked mildly surprised that Rei was speaking to her, or perhaps she really had forgotten that the blue-haired pilot was in the room with her. "What is it, First?"

"Why did you and Pilot Makinami bet one another's connectors?" she asked.

Rei was quite mystified about that matter. The A-10 connectors that the pilots all had to wear to control their Evangelions were not very expensive, after all. Additionally, while the basic technology held enormous potential for allowing human beings to control computers directly with their minds, it was very unlikely that their clips would ever be good for anything besides piloting EVA. They would all be quite useless once the war was over.

However, Asuka looked at her like she couldn't believe the other pilot could be so stupid. "Because they're the symbol of an Evangelion pilot," she answered, pressing the button on her wrist, and causing her own plug suit to constrict around her body.

Then, without another word, the Second Child spun on her heel and departed the locker room. Now alone, Rei quickly finished getting into her own plug suit and moved to follow the other two girls.

A minute later, the four Evangelion pilots had met up at the elevator that would take them to the cages, and they silently got inside, a solemn atmosphere overtaking them as the reality of the insane mission they were about to embark on sank in.

"Asuka," Shinji spoke quietly after a few moments.

"What is it?" she asked him.

"Why do you pilot?" he asked.

The Second Child frowned briefly at the question, but then she smiled, flipping her hair back. "To show the world how great I am," she answered.

"So it's a way to prove you exist?" Shinji pressed.

Asuka shrugged. "Yeah, I guess," she agreed, even though that wasn't the way she'd have ever put it. "Why don't you ask Rei?" she suggested.

"Oh, we've already talked about that," Shinji said distantly, as though he was getting lost in thought.

"Really? Having secret meetings with the First, _Puppy-kun_?" she asked.

_That_ brought Shinji's mind back to the real world, and he flushed deeply. "No, it's nothing like that," he insisted, "and please don't call me that."

"Why not? You don't seem to mind it when Mari calls you that," Asuka smirked, but there was an edge to it that Shinji didn't quite notice.

"Uh…" Shinji stammered, looking for some way to redirect the conversation. His gaze quickly fell on the Fourth Child. "So, why do you pilot, Mari?"

"Mostly because I enjoy wanton violence and destruction!" the brunette answered with a sunny smile that wouldn't have been creepy had it accompanied any other statement.

Both Shinji and Asuka pointedly took a step away from Mari, but she didn't seem to mind. The rest of the elevator ride proceeded in silence.

* * *

"All right, we've just gotten word from the last of the D-level personnel," Makoto reported. "They've made it outside the fifty kilometer radius we set up. The evacuation is complete."

Misato nodded. "Good," she said. "In that case, the three of you can leave as well, if you want," she told the trio of technicians.

"Heh, no way," Aoba said.

"Yeah, we're not going anywhere," Makoto added, while Maya simply nodded in agreement with her two coworkers.

Smiling, Misato turned to look at Jessie. She didn't even have to make the offer before it was refused.

"If you think I'm going to go run and hide while Mari and the other pilots are out there, you're crazy," she said matter-of-factly.

"Just thought I'd ask," Misato said. "So, I guess now all we can do is wait."

"My favorite part," Jessie grumbled to herself, before turning her attention to the techs. "Keep all those expensive instruments honed on the skies. The pilots will need every second we can give them."

The technicians each agreed promptly, but Misato could see how they were chafing at being bossed around by Jessie. Though the blonde did have the authority to give them orders – by virtue of being a member of the command staff and Misato's second – it didn't escape any of the trio that the new arrival was only a lieutenant, like each of them. That she was ordering them to be diligent in their tasks, which they certainly would have done anyway, only made it worse.

"Don't mind her, guys," Misato said, shooting a look in Jessie's direction, and getting an apologetic glance in reply. "She's just a little high-strung right now."

"Oh, don't worry about—" Makoto halted in mid-sentence as an alarm sounded from his terminal. "The Angel is within visual range of the city! The MAGI have pinpointed its location!"

"Commence the operation!" Misato ordered the pilots.

* * *

With a thought, Mari disconnected the umbilical cable from Unit Five's back, commanding it to move towards the Angel. For a brief moment, its wheels spun wildly without getting the Provisional Evangelion anywhere. It was starting off the mission in a rice patty, and as a result, immense amounts of mud and water were kicked up.

Then, the unusual Evangelion took off with a great burst of speed, heading toward the city proper at a truly breakneck pace.

Gripping the controls so tightly that her knuckles were white beneath her plug suit's green gloves, Mari grinned maniacally as she urged her Evangelion on to greater and greater speed. Her heart was pounding, and her adrenaline was pumping.

_Being a pilot __**rocks**__!_ She thought exuberantly.

This was one of the things about her that people found so confounding or difficult to believe. Even though she was charging into a potentially fatal battle, even though she probably wouldn't even get to contribute in any way, even though the speeds Unit Five could reach were rather pathetic compared to the velocities she was now capable of on foot…

"There is no place I'd rather be," she muttered to herself, too softly for the microphones on the plug to pick up, "and nothing else I'd rather be doing."

"**Mari!**" Jessie barked at her over the radio. "**NERV is deploying a ramp for you! It should help you get to the target's landing zone more quickly!**"

_A ramp?_ Mari wondered, mildly confused, but a flashing arrow had appeared on her visor, and she dutifully altered Unit Five's course to follow it. It was only seconds before she saw what Jessie was talking about.

The Fourth Child gasped in delight as he eyes took it in. One of the city's massive blast shields had been partially raised, turning it into an impromptu ramp. The thing couldn't have been better suited for what she intended to do if NERV had designed explicitly it for that purpose.

"Oh hell _yes!_" she exclaimed.

_**VROOOOM!**_ Unit Five engines roared as Mari pressed down on the proverbial accelerator even harder, somehow coaxing even greater speed from the war machine's armored wheels. The provisional Evangelion took the ramp at over 200 kilometers per hour.

"I FEEL LIKE EVEL KNIEVEL!" the Fourth Child shrieked in delight as her Evangelion soared through the sky.

Of course, Unit Five was enormously heavy, and not the most aerodynamic thing in existence, either. It soon came crashing down, now well within the city limits. The colossal war machine landed on top of one of the building-size missile batteries, causing the entire structure to collapse beneath its weight and setting off the ordnance within. Unit Five was almost completely obscured by a massive eruption of fire and smoke.

Inside the plug, Mari barely noticed the explosion; Unit Five's armor was more than sufficient to prevent it from taking any significant damage from that. Indeed, through the neural link with the EVA, the Fourth Child felt a pleasant wave of warmth wash over her.

"Unit Five, walker mode!" she shouted.

Immediately, her faithful Evangelion responded, its mechanical wheels shifting position so that the flat sides were on the bottom, becoming simplistic feet.

With a mental command, Mari sent Unit Five galloping forward. Unlike the standard Evangelions, the provincial unit was too wide to simply run down the city streets, but that didn't deter the brunette. She simply plowed through most of the buildings that dared to get in her way, knocking some of the larger ones out of her path with a few pulses of her AT field.

Her already large grin widened until it looked about ready to split her face in two. "Don't stop, thinkin' about tomorrow!" Mari sang. "Don't stop! It'll soon be here!"

* * *

"**…it'll be better than before! Yesterday's gone! Oh, yesterday's gone!**" The Fourth Child's latest musical endeavor came through the speakers inside the NERV command center at full volume, causing Maya to wince.

Annoyed, Jessie walked up to a nearby console and stabbed a button on it, opening an audio link to Unit Five. "Mari! Knock that off! This isn't a sync test!" she commanded sternly.

"**All I want is to see you smile, if it takes just a little while!**" Mari, who either didn't hear her guardian's words or was pretending that she was unable to, continued to belt out lyrics.

Misato, meanwhile, was gazing up at the view screen that Unit Five was displayed upon and wincing. The provisional EVA could barely be seen at all through the immense cloud of dust and debris it was generating, a cloud that was only growing larger by the second as Mari continued to blaze a path of destruction through the city. The Ops Director mentally groaned, imagining greater and greater stacks of paperwork appearing on her desk with every structure that Unit Five destroyed.

Yet even that wasn't the worst part about Mari's rampage.

_If she doesn't do anything in the battle besides cause all that property damage, the Commanders are going to __**murder**__ me when they get back!_ Misato thought miserably.

"What's the status of Units Zero through Two?" she asked, trying to distract herself from _that_ unhappy possibility.

"Shinji's almost made it to the Angel's projected impact point," Aoba answered her, "and Asuka and Rei aren't far behind."

Sure enough, the screen displaying Unit One showed the purple and green giant skidding to a halt, its feet creating huge trenches in the ground as it rapidly decelerated, fighting inertia. Finally, it came to a complete stop right beneath the Angel, which was almost on top of it by now.

"**AT field full power!**" Shinji yelled, and somehow the words could be heard over Mari's boisterous musical performance.

Nearby trees, structures, and telephone polls were shattered as the invisible but nearly indestructible barrier spread out. Unit One raised its arms as the Angel came crashing down, and the unstoppable force met the immovable object.

"Wow," Makoto said.

"Yeah," Misato agreed softly. She had known, of course, just how much larger the Angel was than any of the Evangelions; the tech people had managed to glean that much information, at least. However, actually _seeing_ just how enormous the monstrous kamikaze was, even when compared to one of their seventy-meter-tall war machines was quite different.

Even so, despite the shocking disparity in size, Unit One was stopping it; Shinji was preventing the Angel from completing its descent and annihilating Tokyo-3.

A fierce smile curled the edges of her lips, and Misato forgot all about the inevitable piles of paperwork, as well as the wrath of the Commanders. _We're going to do it,_ she thought. _We're going to win!_

"Major!" Makoto's yell interrupted her moment of triumph. "The MAGI are detecting two more AT fields!"

"_What?_" Misato exclaimed, feeling icy needles of fear prick at her heart. "More Angels?"

"Negative," Aoba answered. "Each of the nodes at the ends of the Angel's 'appendages' appears to be generating its own independent AT field."

"The Angel's going to hit the ground with those things!" Jessie deduced at once.

She was right, Misato realized immediately. And while the Angel's relatively small limbs doubtlessly had less destructive power than the central mass did, the Ops Director had no doubt that each one would still pack quite a wallop. The force of the twin impacts would almost certainly be enough to knock Unit One off its feet.

_Once that happens, it's game over,_ Misato thought, reaching a decision.

"Asuka, Rei! You have to stop the Angel's arms from hitting the surface!" she ordered. "Catch them!"

"**Right!**" Asuka said.

"**Acknowledged,**" Rei added, sounding remarkably cool and collected, given the circumstances.

Misato had to resist the urge to cover her eyes as she watched the blue and red Evangelions abruptly change course and head for the ends of the Angel's dangly appendages. It was going to be close.

_Dear god, if I get these kids killed today…_

"Come on, come on," Jessie muttered under her breath.

Unit Two arrived beneath one of the Angel's arms, its AT field flaring brightly as it raised its hands and caught the beast's secondary node. "**Got it!**" she shouted.

Unfortunately, Unit Zero had not quite been able to match Unit Two's pace, and the prototype Evangelion was now disturbingly far away from its target.

Misato swallowed. _She's not gonna make it…_

Then, Unit Zero _leaped_ forward, its body skidding along the ground like a baseball player sliding into home. The crazy maneuver got the blue Evangelion beneath the Angel's other node just in time. It immediately flipped itself over, so that it was laying on its back rather than its stomach, and raised its arms, catching the node at the very last moment.

Amazingly, each of the three standard Evangelions had managed to halt one of the three sections of this massive Angel. Unfortunately, that left them in something of a predicament.

"**Misato, I can barely hold this thing up,**" Shinji's strained voice came over the radio. "**There's no way I'll be able to kill it, too.**"

"Understood, Shinji," the Ops Director said. "Mari, it's all you! You have to get to Unit One and the Angel's core before the other Evangelions' batteries run dry! You have less than two minutes."

* * *

"Got it!" Mari acknowledged, even as a countdown timer appeared on her helmet's large visor.

She had ceased in her impromptu musical performance while the other three Evangelions had been catching the Angel, not wanting her singing to drown out everything that was coming in over her radio. However, now that she knew what was going on, she began to belt out song lyrics once more.

"Don't stop thinkin' about tomorrow…!"

Her captive audience was less receptive to the vocal performance this time than they'd been a moment ago, however.

"**Mari! I told you to cut that out!**" Jessie snapped. "**This isn't a game.**"

"Don't stop, it'll soon be here…!"

"_**Seriously**_**, Makinami!**" Asuka hissed. "**This is hard enough without having to put up with your screeching!**"

"It'll be better than before…!"

"**Mari, please, be quiet,**" Shinji piped up, an edge of desperation to his voice. "**It's really annoying…**"

"Yesterday's gone! Oh, yesterday's gone!"

Under more auspicious circumstances, everybody probably would have just tolerated Mari's singing. However, the effort of holding up the Angel was wearing on the other pilots' nerves, and the stress of the whole situation was grating on everbody.

"Makinami-san, _please_ desist!" Rei said.

Getting actual annoyance out of the First Child should've been a clear sign that it was time to stop, but Mari had never been very good at picking up on those kind of cues. "I just want to see you smile! If it takes a little while!"

_**"Mari! SHUT UP!"**_ Jessie, Shinji, and Asuka all shouted in perfect unison.

The Fourth Child winced. "Okay, okay," she grumbled. "No need to yell."

A chorus of wordless growls entered her plug via her radio, but Mari ignored them, focusing her mind on the task at hand. Buildings continued to crumble before her as Unit Five continued its awkward but still very quick sprint toward Unit One and the core of the Tenth Angel.

Unfortunately, the timer on her visor was winding down with frightening speed, and there was still a great distance between her and her target.

"C'mon, big guy, I know you can do this," she encouraged her Evangelion fervently. "Show me how fast you can run."

Unit Five actually managed to pick up some more speed, but it wasn't _much_ more. The countdown clock dipped below the one minute mark, and Mari felt her stomach do a series of very unpleasant flip-flops. _I'm not going to make it in time!_ She thought. _The Angel's going to destroy the whole city, starting with Shinji!_

It surprised her how much that last part distressed her, but Mari quickly shook her head, banishing the idea. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out a way to close the distance in time. She knew that she could've run from her starting point to the Angel in less than a second as the Flash, but Unit Five couldn't go _nearly_ as fast.

She grit her teeth. _Damn, if only Unit Five could move like __**I**__ can,_ she thought fervently, imagining the enormous provisional Evangelion zipping through Tokyo-3 with the speed of the Flash.

Then, apparently triggered by the Fourth Child's very thoughts and desires, it happened.

Tongues of golden energy sprang into being around Unit Five's form, crackling over its armor. No one within the NERV the control center was able to see this; the debris Mari was generating as she smashed her way through the city blocked their view of the green Evangelion almost entirely. The various monitoring devices and sensors that NERV had all around the city were likewise blind to the phenomenon; they had been created to detect AT fields and blue patterns, not the exotic energies associated with the Speed Force.

Mari, however, knew it was there, even though she couldn't see it. She could _sense_ the presence of the golden lightning…and she could feel Unit Five speed up considerably. It was still going nowhere near as quickly as _she_ could, even at what she considered a casual jog, but it was definitely roaring forward with more speed than it had ever exhibited before.

"All right!" she shouted exuberantly as she drew near to the test type Evangelion. "Make way! Unit Five, coming through!"

"**Mari, hurry!**" Shinji groaned out. "**I can't hold it up much longer!**"

The Provisional Evangelion ground to a dangerously abrupt halt, and for one heart stopping second, Mari actually thought she was going to pitch forward and fall. However, she managed to stabilize her EVA at the last moment. She was finally next to Unit One, and within striking distance of the Angel's core.

"Don't worry," she told Shinji, her progressive lance coming to life with a joyful hum. "I've got your back, Puppy-kun." She added in a surprisingly tender voice.

"**Thank you,**" Shinji somehow managed to get out, his voice barely rising above the level of a whisper.

Mari turned her attention toward the Angel, lining up her prog lance with the Angel's massive 'eye'. A smile of feral joy appeared on her face. "Right on the bull's-eye!"

She thrust her weapon forward, and even the Angel's mighty AT field stood no chance. The lance slammed through it, then into the vulnerable material of the core, shattering it. Pieces of the ruby sphere went flying everywhere.

Somehow, despite possessing no visible mouth, the Tenth Angel released a thunderous shriek of pain and anger. Then, its entire form exploded spectacularly, engulfing the four Evangelions and nearly four city blocks in intense white light.

A minute later, the radiance faded, revealing a huge crater. At the bottom of the blasted out indentation in the earth sat the quartet of Evangelions, all of them still intact.

It was over. They had won.

* * *

The return of the population to Tokyo-3 was a long process. Normally, all everyone had to do was emerge from the underground shelters and resume going about their business. Thanks to the evacuation Misato had ordered this time, everybody had a fifty kilometer drive ahead of them.

This, of course, led to traffic jams on a truly _epic_ scale.

For the personnel of NERV, however, the people's delay in returning to the city streets was actually quite convenient. It gave the salvage teams ample time to get the four Evangelions back into the base without having to worry about civilians gawking at them, and the pilots all got put through the usual battery of post-battle tests.

NERV had even had the chance to report to Commander Ikari, who was on some obscure mission in the Antarctic Sea. The man had actually paid a compliment to his son.

_Could he spare it?_ Mari wondered sarcastically as she rode on a train through the city, along with her fellow pilots and two NERV officers.

The way Shinji's face had lit up with a combination of surprise and pleasure at receiving a simple "good job" in exchange for playing a crucial role in _saving all of Tokyo-3_ was another strike against Commander Wells' already shaky theory, so far as Mari was concerned.

_There's no way Puppy-kun is some secret agent in his dad's plan to take over the world or something,_ Mari decided, then paused, a smirk curling onto her face. _Or maybe he's just a __**really**__ good actor. I better keep observing him._

Shinji was an odd one, and perhaps not the type of person she would have initially hung around with by choice, Mari mused. However, he could be fun when he allowed himself to just loosen up a little bit, and he was utterly hilarious to tease.

The train ground to a halt at their stop a few minutes later, and the group filed out, heading to one of Tokyo-3's steakhouses. It was a short and mostly silent walk; all the pilots, even Mari, were feeling fatigued from the long, excruciating wait for the Angel's arrival, followed by the burst of frantic activity required to stop it.

It wasn't until they actually got some food into them that they started coming back to life.

"So, Asuka," Mari said, leaning over toward the other pilot and speaking quietly, "I guess my chances of winning our bet aren't as bad as you think, huh? What's this make the score now? I've got two kills."

The redhead scowled. "You shouldn't get the point for this one."

"What?" Mari exclaimed, abandoning her conspiratorial tone and trading it for a mixture of surprise and amusement. "I got the killing blow!"

"That was the easiest part of the whole battle," Asuka argued. "You just had to waltz up to the Angel and stab it!"

"I had to cross half the city in record time to make it before your batteries ran dry," Mari pointed out.

"It's not my fault that your Evangelion is a slow kludge that can't use the regular lifts!" Asuka retorted.

"Hey, don't you talk about him like that!" Mari snapped. "My Unit Five is awesome!"

"Girls, you're both pretty!" an already tipsy Misato interrupted the debate, before pausing to take another shot of sake. "Now kiss and make up!"

Mari giggled, while Asuka gave her guardian a withering look that the Ops Director blithely ignored. However, the argument had reached something of an impasse, since neither of the two hotshot pilots wanted to further discuss their bet now that they knew they had Misato's attention.

Then, a manic grin then spread over the Fourth Child's face.

"Of course," she said, "the person who really did the hardest part was Shinji here!"

The Third Child, who'd been speaking quietly with Rei, turned at the sound of his name, a small frown of confusion on his face. "Huh?"

"He held up the biggest part of the Angel, after all!" Mari said, before Asuka could protest. "And he was holding his piece for the longest time!"

The Third Child looked away bashfully. "Oh, it wasn't…"

"I totally take back what I said earlier about you needing more red meat in your diet, Puppy-kun! You were like Atlas holding up the sky back there!" Mari interrupted him. "Man, check out these muscles!" she crowed, grabbing hold of his skinny arm and giving it a firm squeeze.

In response, the Third Child let out a loud squawk of surprise and jumped so violently that he nearly knocked over Rei's bowl of tofu stew. Mari laughed like a hyena, the flustered Shinji began to babble and stammer incoherently, while Asuka loudly argued against the notion that Shinji had done the largest part of the work.

Watching them all, Misato sighed. "Those kids are gonna be the death of me," she commented.

"I know what you mean," Jessie agreed, smiling slightly. "They sure make life more interesting, though."

Misato grinned as she silently raised her sake cup. The two women clinked glasses in a toast, celebrating another victory.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Originally, this chapter was going to be a bit longer, since I wanted Mari to make at least _some_ kind of appearance as the Flash. However, this felt complete as it is, so I decided to stop here.

Mari's song selection is sort of a tribute to _The_ _Simpsons._ There's one episode where Bart, hopped up on some experimental Ritalin-like drug, steals a tank and goes cruising around Springfield in it, singing that song. Mari's super destructive race through Tokyo-3 reminded me of that scene.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta readers as well. Now for some fun!

* * *

Omakes

What Just Happened?

_Of course, we never really had a whole lot of use for one in Bethany,_ she mused as she looked around, taking in the several large screens that were mounted on the far wall. _After all, the one time an Angel did attack there, we didn't have a whole lot of time to strategize. Still, does Ikari think that he'll need to brief a whole battalion at once someday?_

The Lieutenant was tempted to ask Misato just that, but before she could, the door opened and the four Evangelion pilots filed inside, each of them still wearing their school uniforms. Jessie, whose mind had always had a tendency to race whenever she was nervous, noticed that Mari was still in her uniform from Johnson's Memorial. She briefly wondered how long Tokyo-3 Junior High would let her get away with that before she forced herself to focus.

* * *

_Two days ago…_

"Makinami-san, may I have a word with you?" Hikari asked, approaching the new student right after classes had been dismissed for the day.

"Oh, sure, and just call me Mari. I never did like being so formal all the time," the bespectacled girl agreed.

Hikari nodded. "All right, then, Mari," she said. "Anyway, I'm the representative of Class 2-A."

"Cool! Is there, like, some kind of Class Congress somewhere that you get to vote in?" Mari asked.

"Uh, no, you might be thinking of student council," Hikari replied, already mildly perplexed. "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about your uniform. You're going to have to change it for the one from this school, and soon."

To her surprise, the EVA pilot responded by leaning uncomfortably close to her. Hikari almost flinched back, but she forced herself to hold her ground, refusing to let Makinami score a point in this confrontation so easily.

"Dude!" she heard Toji hiss at Aida. "Turn that camera on! I think Makinami's about to kiss the class rep!"

Hikari would have snapped at him if she wasn't otherwise occupied, and if she wasn't afraid he was right.

"You smell like strawberries," Makinami said. "It's nice."

"Um, it's because of the shampoo that I…" she trailed off.

_What am I __**doing**__?_ She wondered.

"Now, listen, Makinami-san," she said, shaking a finger at the new student as she tried to reassert her authority, "you wearing the uniform of another school day in and day out is completely unacceptable."

"Oh, all right, I hear you," Mari agreed.

And with that, she reached to the top button on her shirt and began to undo it.

Hikari heard a click, and she was pretty sure it was Aida turning on his camcorder.

"_What are you doing? Stop that!_" Hikari shrilled.

"But I thought you wanted me to change my uniform," Mari said in a tone of pure innocence.

"Well, yes, but—,"

The EVA pilot reached for her buttons again.

"_Stop that!_ I didn't mean change here!" Hikari exclaimed.

"Why? Do you…do you find me unattractive?" Mari asked, her lower lip quivering.

Hikari did a double take. As class rep, she had dealt with a variety of recalcitrant students. She was used to dealing with people who defied, people who spun great webs of excuses, and people who just generally whined and complained a lot about the class rep asserting so much authority.

She had no idea how to deal with this, though.

"Wait, I didn't say you were ugly," she protested weakly.

"Then why are you so adamant that I not change here?" Mari pouted.

"Well, because it's not decent…there are boys here…" Hikari stammered, unable to believe that the other girl even needed this explained to her.

The class rep could clearly see that her halting justifications were having no effect on the pilot.

"You know what?" Hikari said. "Forget about what I said. You don't have to switch uniforms until you're ready."

"Cool!" Mari said, suddenly all smiles again. "See you later, class rep!"

Hikari could only watch dumbfounded as the other girl breezed out of the classroom. "Wha…?"

"Um, class rep?" Shinji piped up from nearby. "This is just a suggestion, but I've spent a little time with Makinami, and, well, I _really_ think it would be easier to just let this one go."

* * *

You Told Me You Burned That!

"All right, then," Misato said, uncrossing her arms as ghost of a smile broke through her professional facade. "Now, the Angel is somehow using its AT field to disrupt both our monitoring satellites and ground-based sensors. As a result, the MAGI are unable to calculate exactly where the Angel will land. Instead, they can only tell us that it'll come down somewhere within this area."

She pressed a button on her remote control again, and the largest screen shifted from the image of the Angel to—

"Whoa!" Mari exclaimed.

"_Mein Gott_!" Asuka yelled.

Shinji's jaw dropped.

"_Misato!_" Jessie yelled, her cheeks turning a deep scarlet with embarrassment.

The Ops Director turned to look at the screen, then let out a small yelp when she saw what was on it. "Oh, God, Jessie, I have _no_ idea how that got in there!" she exclaimed, quickly pushing buttons on her remote until the image vanished.

Jessie ignored her, turning to the pilots. "That isn't what you think!" she exclaimed. "It was the Losers' Christmas party, and we didn't realize just how strong the punch was!"

"It never happened again!" Misato added. "…I think."

"Wow, Jessie, I didn't know you had such a wild side!" Mari laughed.

"Oh, Gott, I'm _surrounded _by perverts!" Asuka groaned, palming her face.

Shinji, meanwhile, wisely kept silent, but one very salient thought was running through his mind.

_I __**have**__ to get a copy of that picture! _


	7. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Six:** Homecoming

_Keystone City_

Steven Cunningham was having a good day.

First it had been finding that ten dollar bill on the way to work, which had been enough for him to buy himself a hot breakfast, for once. Then it had been the bus actually showing up on time, another rarity. When he'd reached his job, work had proceeded unusually smoothly, and Peggy, that cute blond secretary, had given him a smile and a wink this morning.

So when one of his coworkers had informed him that his supervisor wanted to see him, Steve had dared to hope that more good fortune was coming his way.

_Maybe I'm getting a promotion,_ he thought as he headed to his boss's small office. _Or maybe I'm actually getting a transfer to the station. I could finally get out of this boring place._

Steven was employed by the Keystone City Police Department, but he wasn't a cop himself. He'd wanted to become one, but he'd washed out of the academy. Instead, he had ended up working at one of their warehouses.

One of their incredibly _dull_ warehouses, where old evidence was stored. Most of it was from cold cases, though there was also quite a bit of stuff from cases which had long since been closed that the KCPD didn't want to get rid of for one reason or another.

Arriving at the door to his boss's office, Steven knocked.

"Come in," a gruff voice answered from the other side of the door.

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Petersen?" he asked as he entered.

"Yes, I did," his supervisor said to him. "Have a seat, Cunningham." He gestured to an empty chair.

Steven felt his hopes for a promotion or transfer to a more exciting location wither; Petersen's demeanor was far too solemn for a man delivering good news. Steven slowly sat in the chair.

The supervisor was silent for a few seconds, then heaved a sigh. "There's no easy way to say this, Cunningham, so I'll just spit it out," he said. "We're going to have to let you go. This is your ninety days' notice."

"I'm being laid off?" Steven asked in dismay. "But, why? I mean, what did I do wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing," Petersen reassured him. "Unfortunately, our budget is being cut. Government's giving all the damn money to NERV these days. We just don't have the funds to keep you on anymore."

"I…I see," Steven said, his shoulders slumping. "Um, can I use you for a reference when I go looking for a new job, Mr. Petersen?" he asked gloomily.

"Actually…" Petersen glanced around nervously, as though afraid there might be someone hiding somewhere inside his tiny office, eavesdropping on them. "I might have a…job for you."

"Really?" Steven asked, his eyes lighting up. "What? What is it?"

"It's probably best not to talk about this while we're on the clock here," Petersen said. "Do you know where Ralph's Tavern is?"

"Uh, yes," Steven said, blinking at the seeming non sequitur.

Ralph's Tavern was a seedy little bar and grill in the city's industrial area. Though it was too out of his way for him to regularly patronize the place, Steven had nothing against it. However, he suspected that Petersen would have felt the establishment was too low class for him. He was surprised his supervisor would even bring it up.

"Meet me there tomorrow night at 8:30, all right?" Petersen asked. "We'll discuss this job then."

"Sure, Mr. Petersen, and thanks for the opportunity," Steven said.

The supervision just nodded. "Now, back to work Cunningham," he said. "You still have three months left here, after all."

"Right, of course," Steven agreed, then quickly left, still feeling confused.

_That was weird,_ he mused. _Why would Petersen want to meet at __**Ralph's Tavern**__ of all places to talk to me about a job opportunity?_

Then he shrugged. If there was any chance of finding new employment right after being laid off from his current position, Steven Cunningham certainly wasn't about to turn his nose up at it.

* * *

If someone had asked most of the students in Tokyo-3 Municipal Junior High School to name one word that described Kensuke Aida, the overwhelming response would have been "okaku."

"Geek" would've been a close second.

However, if one had posed that same question to Kensuke himself, the bespectacled boy's immediate response would've been "entrepreneur."

"Thank you, come again," Kensuke said, handing a small envelope filled with photos to one of his classmates.

The guy walked off, glancing around nervously as he departed from the shadowy corner of the school yard where Kensuke and Toji sat. To his relief, no one paid him any attention, and he was able to cram his acquisition into his backpack without anyone seeing.

The otaku was too busy counting his money to take any notice of his latest customer's antics.

"Man, I can't believe how well we're doing here," Toji commented as he held a strip of film negatives up to the sun, appraising the images on them.

"What did I tell you, man? I knew Makinami would be a gold mine for us," Kensuke said smugly.

So far, the two boys had been making quite a tidy profit by selling the photos they'd taken of the newly arrived EVA pilot, though the pictures weren't quite as lucrative as photos of Asuka had been, when _she_ had first arrived in Tokyo-3. Yet even so, Toji's fears that their fellow students would be largely uninterested in the brunette, who was so much less exotic looking than the redhead, were proving unfounded.

"Man, if only we could get some racier shots of her we could practically afford to buy our own cars!" Kensuke remarked.

Toji snorted, knowing that that was a serious exaggeration. "Yeah, right," he said. "Besides, we're already taking a huge risk here. Do you know how screwed we'll be if we manage to get something risqué and get caught selling it?"

Kensuke shook his head. "We sold pictures of Asuka in the girl's locker room, and you didn't complain," he said. "Since when did you become such a coward about this?"

"Since I realized how damn lucky we were not to get caught with any of those shots," Toji retorted.

The freckled boy rolled his eyes. "Man, you've gotten paranoid," he proclaimed. "There's absolutely no chance that we're gonna get—"

"Hey, you know, these aren't bad."

The new voice abruptly entering into the conversation threw the otaku for a loop, especially since the voice was feminine, and all their previous customers had been male. For a split second, his mind reached the conclusion that they had their first female patron, an idea that he honestly found pretty exciting, for more than one reason.

Then he looked up from the task of counting the yen notes in his hand, and his heart stopped. Makinami stood before them, looking over the sample photos that they had on display.

"Of course," Mari continued, "they're even more impressive when you consider that every last one of them was taken with one of those really long zoom lenses."

Kensuke didn't reply. Instead, he turned a panicked gaze toward Toji, and even though he didn't say a word, the jock somehow knew exactly what he wanted to convey.

It was something like "You're supposed to be the lookout! I thought you were watching for anybody we didn't want to see all this!"

Toji, who was breaking out into a cold sweat, responded with an equally silent response that roughly translated into "I _was_! I looked away for one second, and she just freaking _appeared_ here!"

Apparently oblivious to the mute communication between the two boys, Mari picked up another of the pictures. "Wow, you guys really managed to catch my good side in this one!"

"Oh, god! Please don't kill us!" Kensuke exclaimed, abruptly regaining the ability to speak. "I promise we'll never do it again! We're so sorry!"

Mari looked down at them over the top of the Polaroid she was holding. "Sorry? What for?" she asked mildly.

She wore an expression that looked genuinely puzzled to Kensuke, but that didn't mean the otaku was going to let his guard down yet.

_There's no way she's clueless enough to not realize we aren't supposed to be doing this,_ he thought. _Maybe Ayanami would be, but not her._

"You're not mad?" he asked cautiously.

"Mad? Not at all!" the American EVA pilot reassured him cheerfully. "In fact, I want _in_ on this action!"

"In?" Toji echoed stupidly. He didn't quite seem to have gotten over the awful shock of being discovered yet.

"That's right," Mari confirmed with a nod. "Here's what I was thinking: I model for your pictures, you guys stay in charge of the production and distribution part, and I get 50 percent of the gross. What do you say?"

The two boys blinked, barely daring to believe the way this situation was unfolding.

"I don't know," Kensuke said slowly. "I'm already splitting the net profit with Toji. If we gave you half the gross, there wouldn't be a whole lot left for the two of us, even if sales picked up a bit."

Of course, all Mari had to do was threaten to tell the teacher or the class rep, and they'd have to hand over _all_ of the gross profits to her. Kensuke knew it, and he was pretty sure Mari knew it, too, despite the way she was acting. The otaku braced himself for the inevitable blackmailing.

"Okay, how about this, then? Fifty percent of the gross, and I model for your pictures _in a_ _bikini_," Mari said.

Toji and Kensuke both did a double take. Then, in a display too perfect to have been rehearsed, they simultaneously looked the new girl up and down, traded a stunned glance, then turned back to Mari.

"Deal," they said as one.

"Cool!" the brunette said. "Well, I'll get in touch with you guys later so we can set up a time for the photo shoot. See ya!"

She walked off, leaving a pair of stunned teenage boys in her wake. For a long time, the otaku and the jock just sat there, speechless.

Then Kensuke broke out into a broad grin. "And you were so afraid that we were going to get in trouble over this…"

Toji groaned and palmed his forehead.

* * *

Seated in his car, which itself was parked in the lot belonging to Ralph's Tavern, Steven Cunningham checked his wristwatch for what felt like the ten-thousandth time. Eager to discuss any potential for new employment, he'd arrived barely a minute past 7:30, an hour early for his informal meeting with his boss. However, he'd been hesitating ever since then. Something just didn't feel right about this to him.

His crappy little watch said it was 8:25 PM.

"Well, now or never," he muttered.

Seeing as how his current job would only last for another three months, while his bills were sure to keep on coming, "never" didn't seem to be an option. Steven got out of his car with some wordless grumblings and headed toward the bar.

The interior of Ralph's Tavern was a typical bar. It was dimly lit, with cigarette smoke and the smell of stale beer hanging in the air. A few flat screen TVs had been mounted on the walls in strategic locations, and every last one was displaying a hockey game. A quick glance at the score was enough to tell Steven that the Keystone Combines were getting their asses kicked.

_Typical_, he thought, scanning the room for his boss.

He almost managed to miss Mr. Peterson; the man was sitting in a booth at the back of the room, almost hidden by the shadows. Steven realized he'd never seen the man in casual clothes before; Peterson looked strange wearing denim jeans and no tie. Taking a deep breath, Steven went over to him.

"Ah, Cunningham, you're right on time," Peterson remarked as he saw the younger man approach. "Punctual as always."

"Thank you, sir," Steven replied in a carefully neutral tone as he sat down across from his boss.

"Would you like a beer, Cunningham?" Peterson asked him. "On me."

"I…try not to drink during job interviews, Mr. Peterson," Steven replied slowly. This was getting stranger by the second, he decided.

"Well, this isn't exactly a regular job interview, or a regular job, for that matter," Peterson said gruffly, then he raised a hand to get the attention of one of the waitresses. "Hey, a cold one for my friend here!"

"Right," she said in quick acknowledgement before going back to what she was doing.

"Thanks," Steven said awkwardly, even though he didn't really want a beer at the moment.

The waitress brought him an open bottle of Budweiser a minute later, and Steven took a drink just to be polite. However, her quick departure sent the smoke hanging in the room swirling about, and Steven couldn't help but cough as he inhaled some of it.

"All the smoke bothering you?" Peterson asked. He might have come off as genuinely concerned if he wasn't taking out a cigarette of his own.

"No, it doesn't bother me at all," Steven lied.

"Uh-huh," Peterson grunted skeptically, but he withdrew a Zippo from a pocket and lit up his smoke all the same.

There was a moment of awkward silence. Steven wished that his boss would just cut to chase, but he thought it would be unwise to say so.

Peterson took a long drag from his cigarette, then let it out slowly. "You know, it's been illegal in Kansas to smoke inside businesses like this for several years now," he remarked.

"Is that so?" Steven asked.

The older man nodded. "Oh, yes," he said. "The thing is, a lot of cops smoke, too, and most of the ones who don't are open to bribes, or just don't want the trouble, so the law doesn't really get enforced."

"I see," Steven said, wondering where the heck his boss was going with this.

"Time was, Keystone City had one of the most honest police forces in the country," Peterson continued. "Of course, things here are nowhere near as bad as they are in Chicago or Gotham, but still, times have definitely changed."

"There's no scarlet speedster around to inspire people anymore," Steven finally ventured a remark.

"Ah, the Flash," Peterson grinned crookedly. "Amazing how everybody still knows somebody who got saved by the man, even though he's been dead for so many years. Though I guess it won't be too long before that's not the case anymore. These days, anybody who got the chance to meet him has gray hair."

"I heard there's a new speedster, a girl, calling herself the Flash," Steven said. He was aware that the conversation was getting increasingly far away from the topic he wanted to discuss, but he had no idea how to rectify that. "She's in Japan, though."

Peterson took another puff from his cigarette and grinned bitterly. "Seems like Japan has everything these days, both good and bad," he commented. "In fact, Japan is where this…job is coming from."

More perplexed than ever, but unwilling to lose this opportunity, Steven pounced. "What's this job about, anyway?" he asked.

Peterson looked about, as if to make sure no one was watching them, then he leaned forward. "I recently received…an offer," he said. "Someone in Japan is willing to pay a very large sum for a few items inside the warehouse."

Steven's eyebrows went up as he quickly began to assemble a few of the pieces inside his mind. He knew, of course, that things often went "missing" from the warehouse, once it was clear that the justice system was done with them. Narcotics and the like were kept under lock and key, but cell phones and other small items vanished on a fairly regular basis.

However, this person that Peterson was talking about, the mystery man on the other side of the Pacific willing to pay through the nose…he obviously wanted something a bit more unique and valuable than a lightly used Nokia product.

"What are we talking about here?" Steven asked. "What's this guy want?"

"Things from some old cases, closed cases," Peterson said. "Things that were used by some of the more…colorful bad guys from Keystone's past."

Steven's eyes widened. "Are you serious?" he breathed.

"As a heart attack," Peterson nodded. "Look, if you're not interested, you can walk away now, and we can pretend this meeting never happened. But I can't go riffling through the shelves myself to get this stuff. Someone will see me and wonder what's up. I need someone in your position to actually get it out of the warehouse, and I can promise you 50 grand for the job."

Steven inhaled sharply. That was more money than he made in a year. "In cash?" he asked.

"In cash," Peterson confirmed with a nod. "So, are you in?"

Steven hesitated for a long moment, considering. He didn't like the idea of doing what Peterson was proposing, especially considering that he had a pretty good idea what that stuff would be used for. The Flash had once saved his Uncle Willie from getting mowed down by a drunk driver.

Still…he was about to be out of a job. He pretty much lived from paycheck to paycheck, so he didn't have a whole lot of money saved up. The economy was pretty damn crummy at the moment, so he didn't have much hope of finding a new job quickly. And he had nothing to fall back on, not even any relatives he could hope to maybe mooch off of until he got back on his feet.

Fifty-thousand dollars would lessen the odds of him ending up on the street substantially, to say the least.

_Screw it,_ he thought. _The new girl's not Barry Allen._

"I'm in," he said.

* * *

It was the middle of the night, and Mari Illustrious Makinami couldn't sleep.

Of course, most people wouldn't have found it surprising to discover that someone in her position was suffering from insomnia. After all, she was a fourteen-year-old who was charged with piloting a giant mecha into combat against potentially world ending monsters. On top of that, she had also secretly taken on the role of being a super heroine.

Yet her inability to sleep that night had nothing to do with those concerns, or even the photo shoot she had recently agreed to do with Suzuhara and Aida.

Nope, she was tossing and turning because she was simply a very energetic teenager, and sometimes she didn't always manage to tire herself out in the course of the day.

_Ugh, what time it is?_ She wondered, turning to look at the clock on her bedside table.

The luminous blue numbers told her what she already knew, namely that it was the middle of the night. Or very early morning, if you wanted to get technical about it.

"Oh, screw this," she finally decided, kicking off her blankets and getting out of bed.

She got dressed, as quickly and as quietly as she could, then crept out of her room, wincing every time the floorboards creaked beneath her weight. However, she didn't hear so much as a peep coming from Jessie's room; her guardian was apparently fast asleep.

Finally, Mari made it to the door and slipped out of the apartment. She quickly zipped down the darkened stairwell to the ground floor of the building, then carefully poked her head through the front door.

A black sedan sat out front, in a pool of light created by a street lamp. Mari could easily hear the Section Two guys inside snoring away.

She rolled her eyes. Back in Keystone, giving her bodyguards the slip had required actual effort on her part, at least before she'd gained superhuman speed. But in Tokyo-3…

_These guys couldn't catch a cold,_ she thought, before moving a short distance away, making sure she was well out of sight.

Then she pressed the tiny stud on the side of her ring. Immediately, it popped open, ejecting the miniature suit hidden inside. Mari kicked into speed mode, donning the crimson garment in the blink of an eye as it rapidly expanded. In less than a heartbeat, the Fourth Child had switched places with the Flash.

"Up, over, and gone!" she exclaimed, taking off into a run, leaving a trail of golden lightning crackling behind her.

Within seconds, the scarlet speedster had left the city of Tokyo-3 behind her. It didn't take her much longer to reach the eastern shore of Nippon.

_Here goes nothing!_ She thought with a manic grin on her face.

Denise had told her that the Flash was capable of running on water, but Mari had always had trouble believing that. However, she'd been wanting to try it for some time now.

Of course, it would've been wiser to make her first attempt on Lake Ashi or some smaller body of water, but that just wasn't the way Mari rolled.

The Flash's yellow boots hit the water and kept going. She didn't sink. Instead, she just continued running. She was kicking up a massive spray behind and on either side of herself, but she was having no difficulty staying above the surface of the sea.

"Awesome!" she exclaimed, and put on even more speed, soon breaking the sound barrier and leaving a colossal boom that shook the sea in her wake. Then, she began to sing. "Rolling around at the speed of sound, I got places to go, gotta follow my rainbow…"

For several minutes, she continued to run eastward, covering hundreds of miles, and quickly leaving the nation of Japan behind herself. It wasn't long before the sky began to get brighter.

_Faster than the speed of night,_ she thought to herself with a chuckle.

It wasn't too long before the western shore of the United States began to come into view, and the Flash's omnipresent grin widened. It was time to visit home.

* * *

"O-M-G, have you heard what's going on with Kevin and Ana?" Katie Anderson muttered quietly to herself as she typed the words into her smart phone. "Send."

It had been an exciting day at school, the twelve-year-old girl decided as she waited for a reply. Rumors that the hottest boy and the most popular girl in their class had snuck off during lunch to make out were bouncing all over the school, and Katie hadn't been able to wait until getting home to start gossiping about it. She'd whipped out her cell phone almost the instant she'd gotten off school grounds.

Said cell phone beeped as a new text message came in from her friend. Katie eagerly displayed it.

It read, "I heard that Ana just said that to make everyone THINK she made it to first base with Kevin."

Katie laughed aloud at this idea, getting several people who were walking down the same street as she was to look at her curiously. The preteen girl didn't even notice this, however, and quickly began to key in her response.

"Please. Ana's not that smart," she mumbled to herself as she typed the message out. "Maybe they didn't really kiss, but there's no way she made the whole thing up."

A reply came a moment later, and Katie quickly brought it up. She was just reading it when the deafening roar of a car horn caused her to look up.

Katie felt her blood turn to ice in her veins. She had been so preoccupied with her texting that she she'd stepped out into the street without even realizing it, and now a _freaking gigantic_ truck was bearing down on her.

The girl froze with terror, unable to close her eyes, unable to even breathe, in the face of her oncoming death.

Then, for just a split second, the entire world seemed to blur around her. She felt like the air was getting sucked straight out of body, and she assumed that the truck had hit her. Surely, she must be either dead or dying.

Then the world abruptly returned to clarity. On instinct, she inhaled sharply, feeling the aching in her chest immediately subside as new air was brought into her lungs. Badly dazed, she looked around, blinking stupidly.

She appeared to have ended up back on the sidewalk. How had that happened?

"You okay, kid?" a voice asked her, and she turned.

Katie's jaw dropped. Standing next to her was another girl, more than a head taller than she was. Her rescuer was clad in a tight red costume with yellow boots. An emblem that everybody in Keystone City (and Central City, too, for that matter) knew well was emblazoned upon her chest.

"The Flash," she breathed.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," the new scarlet speedster said and posed heroically, placing her hands on her hips and throwing her chest out. Several people nearby began to snap pictures with cell phone cameras, but the superwoman appeared oblivious to them.

Katie's eyes widened.

Then the preteen girl released a shriek of excitement, causing the Flash to wince.

"Ow, kid, is that any way to thank me for saving your life?" the Flash asked. She tried to rub her ears, but found herself unable to do so because of the wing fins on her cowl.

"S-Sorry," Katie stammered, embarrassed. "And thanks."

"Ah, don't worry about it. It's all in a day's work," the Flash said, grinning toothily. Then she looked down the long road they were standing on, and her smile widened further. "Arriba! Arriba! Andale! Andale!"

With that, the crimson comet took off, leaving a powerful gust of wind in her wake.

Once she was gone, Katie whipped out her phone again. This time making very sure that she was in a safe spot and not moving, the girl quickly logged onto Twitter.

"O-M-G," she muttered as she typed. "Just got saved by the new Flash, exclamation point…caps lock…she's in Keystone, exclamation point, exclamation point… exclamation point. Send."

* * *

The building was ablaze.

Jon Ryan had been a member of the Central City Fire Department for the last 15 years, and he had never seen a fire this bad before. The entire apartment building was an inferno, with fire and smoke pouring out of every window. Mother nature wasn't helping anything, with especially hot, dry air and high winds threatening to spread the fire to the neighboring buildings.

"We're barely making a dent in this!" one of his fellow firefighters said. He and Ryan were struggling to keep the stream of water from their powerful hose on target.

"Just keep it up!" Ryan retorted, even though he secretly agreed with that assessment. "Reinforcements from Keystone should be here any minute now!"

"Yeah, and what good will that—?"

The firefighters' conversation was interrupted as a slightly overweight blonde woman came running up, a terrified expression on her face. "Oh my god!" she shrieked. "My baby's in there!"

Ryan's eyes widened. He had thought that they'd managed to get everybody out of the building.

"Which floor is you child on, ma'am?" Ryan asked.

"The seventh," the terrified woman asked, turning her gaze up to the floor in question.

The two men exchanged a glance, then looked upwards themselves. They both knew that venturing to the seventh floor was practically a suicide mission, but if there was really a baby up there…

Ryan swallowed, preparing to volunteer for the task.

Yet before he could make a sound, a powerful gust of wind passed them by, strong enough to send even his heavy coat flapping in the air. The firefighter thought that he spied just a hint of crimson by the entrance to the burning building. He had only seen it from of the corner of his eye, yet he was still quite certain that _something_ had been there.

"No," he whispered, his tone almost reverent. "No way…"

His father, who'd been a fireman himself for over thirty years, had once described almost exactly what Ryan had just seen. The old man had always said that when he saw the scarlet blur and felt the blast of wind, he knew that he didn't have to worry anymore, that the day was as good as saved.

Still, things like that didn't happen anymore. It had been a _long_ time since things like that had happened in the twin cities.

Then there was another gust of wind, and suddenly a girl who couldn't have been a day older than sixteen was standing in front of the burning building, holding a toddler in her arms. Tongues of golden energy crackled around her red-clad form as she came to a stop.

_I don't believe it,_ Ryan thought. _It's the Flash._

"Robby!" the boy's mother exclaimed, looking nearly overwhelmed with relief.

"Here you go, lady," the Flash said with a smile, handing the soot streaked kid over.

For a moment, all was quiet aside from the crackling of the blaze nearby. The fire had attracted quite a crowd of onlookers, in addition to the fire department, and now a hush fell over the crowd. The people couldn't believe what they were seeing. They had all been told, again and again, that they could no longer hope for a scarlet speedster to rescue them in their darkest hour. Yet here was one, standing right before them.

It was the Flash who broke the silence. "Okay, everybody!" she called out. "I'm going to need you to back away from the building!"

The crowd immediately obeyed, as did the firefighters. Ryan hadn't ever expected to take orders from a teenage girl, especially not at the scene of a roaring fire, but that day he shut off the hose and retreated from the burning apartment building without a moment's hesitation.

Once satisfied that everybody was far enough away, the Flash faced the building and rubbed her gloved hands together.

"Don't worry, everybody!" she said. "I have it on very good authority that Barry Allen made this work all the time!"

These were perhaps not the most encouraging words she could have spoken, but if anybody felt the urge to stop her, they kept it to themselves.

The Flash held her arms straight and rigid, pointing directly toward the building. Then she began to spin them at a furious pace, until her arms were nothing more than blurs. Twin cones of air sprang into existence.

_She's not gonna try and __**blow**__ that fire out, is she?_ Ryan wondered, suddenly very concerned about what the speedster was doing.

Yet he realized a moment later that he need not have been worried. The flames actually looked like they were being sucked toward the Flash rather than blown away from her, though the fire always sputtered out before reaching her.

_She's sucking up all the air to starve the fire,_ he thought, grabbing hold of his heavy fireman's helmet so it wasn't blown away.

For several seconds, it was like a small tornado had touched down in the street. Even though the crowd wasn't the focus of the Flash's efforts, they all felt the effects. Many of them closed their eyes in the face of nearly hurricane-force winds.

Then the Flash stopped, and the gusts almost immediately died down. The members of the crowd gasped in awe at what they saw.

The fire was out. Where before the apartment building had been a raging inferno, now it was smoldering embers.

For several seconds, stunned silence reigned.

Then someone in the crowd managed to find his voice.

"Flash! Flash, you _rule!_"

Other enthusiastic cheers immediately followed, along with a great outburst of applause. The Flash grinned brilliantly, taking a bow, which only caused the people to cheer more loudly.

Then her grin transformed into a smirk. "Meep-meep!" she exclaimed, taking off, and then she was gone.

Ryan watched as the trail of crackling lightning she left in her wake flickered out. He was aware that he was grinning like a kid, but he couldn't help himself.

_Man, my brother is __**never**__ going to believe this,_ he thought.

* * *

For over an hour, the Flash raced around the twin cities of Keystone and Central, addressing any issues she happened to come across.

The first act of nearly every single person she rescued was to tell someone else of what they had seen and experienced. News of the Flash's exploits spread by word of mouth. People announced over the internet what they had witnessed. Within thirty minutes of the Flash's arrival, a popular radio station based in Central City was accepting calls from listeners who claimed to have seen the Flash. Cell phone usage spiked to a level that nearly crashed the area's grid. It wasn't long before individuals who felt left out of the excitement started weaving false accounts of seeing the Flash, which only served to magnify the excitement further.

In short, it wasn't long until news of the Flash was moving even faster than _she_ was.

Yet for all the different people talking about the Flash, everyone's response to her presence in the twin cities was largely the same.

Raw, unbridled excitement.

The Flash was in town, they told each other.

The third coming of the scarlet speedster was among them, they said.

For the first time in years and years, a superhero raced through their streets, helping anyone who needed it, without expectation or need of reward.

So, though she might live in Japan, so far as the residents of Keystone and Central were concerned, the Fastest Girl Alive became one of theirs that day.

* * *

"Mari?" Denise said, tapping her headset anxiously. "C'mon, Mari, I know you're around."

The lone resident of Keystone City who knew who the new Flash was beneath her cowl felt like she was the only one who hadn't seen her yet. The instant she had heard of the Flash being in town, Denise Myles had immediately rushed home and donned the headset. Unfortunately, its connection to the radio concealed in one of the Flash's wing fins didn't appear to be working.

"Mari, you're scaring me here," Denise said. "Please, answer me already."

"HI DENISE!"

The words, which the Flash had shouted at nearly the top of her lungs, came not from the headset Denise was wearing, but from right behind her. The rather mousey girl jumped a foot in the air, then spun around to look at the scarlet speedster, her face pale.

"Geeze, Mari!" she exclaimed, clutching a hand to her chest. "I told you to stop doing that! You're gonna give me a heart attack eventually if you keep it up!"

"Sorry," the Flash said, though the grin on her face didn't make her look very repentant. "I couldn't resist."

"I hope you'll tell everyone that when you speak at my funeral," Denise grumped.

"Please, you're young and strong. I'm not gonna kill you just by spooking you every now and again," the Flash said. "Anyway, can I borrow five bucks?" she added, abruptly shifting gears.

"Um, okay, I guess," Denise said, digging into her pocket and pulling out a slightly crumpled picture of Lincoln.

"Thanks," the Flash said, snatching the bill.

"What are you—?" Denise began, only to have her friend seemingly vanish before her very eyes.

Before she could even fully register the scarlet speedster's disappearance, however, the Flash returned just as abruptly as she'd left. A large, soft pretzel with mustard was clutched in her hand. It was already half eaten.

"You just can't stop thinking about your stomach these days, can you?" Denise asked, reaching up to adjust her glasses.

"Hey, I would've eaten before I came here, but _somebody_ told me I'm not supposed to accept freebies, and I had all my money converted to yen already," the Flash retorted. "Besides, I just ran across the Pacific Ocean and then did about 30 laps around the twin cities! I think I deserve a snack!"

"Okay, okay, chill out," Denise said, raising her hands in a placating gesture. "Wait…you ran across the Pacific Ocean?"

"Uh-huh," the Flash grunted, her mouth full. She swallowed the last bite of her pretzel before continuing. "How do you think I got here? Took a plane?"

"Sorry, it's just…how long did it take you to get across the ocean?" Denise asked, looking flustered.

"About 20 minutes," the Flash replied.

"Twenty minutes…" Denise echoed, amazed.

She knew that Jay Garrick or Barry Allen could've done that, of course, but Mari's super speed was still fairly new to her.

"Yeah, I know, it felt like _forever,_" the Flash said, completely misinterpreting her friend's surprise. "But I was afraid that I'd create a tidal wave or something if I went any faster."

"Oh," was all Denise said in response to that. It was all she could _think_ to say in response to that.

"Oh, yeah!" the Flash said, snapping her fingers in recollection. "I have something for you! I thought your Uncle Dexter might be able to use it in his museum or something."

She reached into her boot and withdrew a Polaroid, handing it to Denise. The other girl smiled when she saw it. The photo depicted the Flash and Mari standing side by side, both grinning toothily at the camera.

"So, did you do this with some camera trick, or did you master that technique to appear as if you're in two places at once?" Denise asked.

"I did it with pure speed, buddy," the Flash bragged.

"Cool," Denise said. "Hey, who took this picture?"

"I did," the Flash answered with a smirk.

Denise's eyes widened and she looked down at the picture again. Neither person it looked remotely transparent; there was nothing to suggest that it was just one individual moving back and forth (and changing clothes), at mind boggling speeds.

"Okay, I'm officially impressed now," she declared.

"Oh, it's only official _now_?" the Flash asked, looking exceedingly pleased with herself.

"Yeah, yeah, don't get too full of yourself," Denise warned, narrowing her eyes. However, she couldn't keep up the annoyed expression for more than a moment, and she soon smiled. "So, how have you been? And what brought you here today?"

The Flash shrugged. "I decided to come here because I couldn't sleep," she answered. "And it's been cool in Tokyo-3 so far. I got to stab an Angel in the eyeball! Of course, it was pretty much _all_ eyeball, but still…"

Denise immediately found herself envisioning a giant eye floating around the city of Tokyo-3, shooting laser beams at people and buildings.

"But it's not all good," the Flash continued, her usual grin morphing into a scowl. "NERV Central tricked me into taking a big pay cut!"

"Huh? How'd they do that?" Denise asked, scratching her head.

The Flash looked sheepish. "Well, when they told me how much they'd be paying me there, I was still thinking in American dollars, not in yen," she confessed. "So it _sounded_ like they were giving me a big raise…"

Denise couldn't help it. She snickered.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," the Flash scowled, placing her fists on her hips. "I don't even have enough cash to keep up with my appetite lately. I've already lost a few pounds."

That statement immediate caused Denise to turn serious. She cast a worried glance at her friend and was relieved to see that the new scarlet speedster was not visibly skinnier than she remembered her. Yet even so…

"You can't just let yourself waste away," she said firmly. "If it comes down to it, you'll just have to let Jessie know how much you put away these days and hope she doesn't get too suspicious about it."

"Nah, I don't have to do that. I already have things all set up for a new income stream," the Flash said.

"…do I want to know?" Denise asked reluctantly.

"Probably not," the Flash answered without skipping a beat. "But if it makes you feel better, it's something I'm doing as me, not as…" she gestured to the crimson outfit she currently wore.

"Well, I guess that's _some_ comfort," Denise said, still not too keen on the idea of her often impulsive friend embarking on a get-rich-quick scheme of any kind.

She was actually thinking about trying to force Mari to explain what she planned to do, but Denise ultimately decided against it. Even if she go the EVA pilot to cough up her little secret, it wouldn't do any good. When Mari Illustrious Makinami was set on doing something, nothing would stop her, and that most definitely included Denise Myles.

"Anyway," the Flash spoke, "I was thinking that since—"

The speedster abruptly stopped talking, causing Denise to frown with confusion. However, realization quickly followed; the Flash was pressing one of her wing fins more closely to her ear. It was the one with the police scanner inside it, Denise knew.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Robbery from some police warehouse," the Flash answered, just before an excited grin made its way onto her face. "Gotta run!"

She took off, leaving a gust of wind in her wake that blew Denise's long hair everywhere, leaving it a complete mess. Yet the girl didn't scowl as she attempted to get it back into some semblance of order, without any result. She felt that she still needed to be the "rational one" around Mari, but now that she was alone, a broad grin split her face.

"So cool," she said, still barely able to believe that the third Flash was racing through Keystone at that very moment. "_So_ cool."

* * *

_Minutes earlier…_

On one level, Steven Cunningham could not believe what he was doing.

Oh, he understood all the logic of it in his head. He was going to be unemployed soon, he had no safety net of any kind to catch him, and he needed the money. He didn't feel like he owed the city anything, with the way they were planning on rewarding his years of loyal service by laying him off.

Yet all that didn't change the fact that he was _stealing from the police. _In fact, he was stealing _weapons_ from the police.

_Okay, just calm the hell down and act natural,_ he ordered himself sternly, walking through the warehouse, holding a white cardboard box containing his ill-gotten loot. He was sweating profusely, even though the temperature was quite comfortable. _This stuff used to disappear from this place all the time, and nobody was ever caught taking it._

That much, at least, he knew was true. Weapons like the ones he carried were too unique, too powerful, and thus too valuable to remain moldering in storage for very long. Or at least, they had been. Back in the day, there was always some criminal willing to plunk down a serious chunk of change for such arms, along with individuals in positions similar to Steven's willing to sneak the stuff out for that money.

Then Barry Allen had vanished off the face of the Earth, and suddenly, the police in Keystone City had started shooting to kill whenever they encountered anyone wielding the weapons Steven currently held. Demand for them had declined sharply once the bad guys started realizing that.

_Okay, new plan,_ he told himself. _Just don't think—__**at all**__—until you freaking reach your car._

This actually seemed to work fairly well. Steven approached one of the side doors to the warehouse without incident, and he even started to calm down somewhat. Sweat stopped pouring down his brow.

"Hey, Steve. Whatcha got there?" a woman's voice shattered any good feelings he might have been experiencing at the moment.

His head snapped to the side, taking in Peggy, the cute secretary he'd been flirting with before his life had taken such an unexpected turned.

It was here that Steven proved himself to be anything but a master thief. Peggy didn't exactly seem suspicious. Indeed, her demeanor was quite pleasant, and she was probably more interested in saying hello than satisfying her curiosity about the box he was carrying. Even if she had pressed the issue, Steven knew enough about the business of the warehouse to spin a believable lie about it.

Unfortunately for Steven, he was far too high strung to realize any of that. So instead of making small talk for two minutes, he took off toward the door in a sprint.

"Steve?" Peggy called, confused but obviously realizing that something was very wrong. "Where are you going?"

He ignored her, opening the door with one swift kick and bursting out into the sunshine outside. From there, he ran as quickly as his legs would take him to his car. He fumbled with his keys for several moments, his panic making him clumsy, but he was eventually able to get inside his vehicle. Throwing his box into the passenger seat, Steven quickly got behind the wheel, cursing under his breath the whole time.

Security emerged from the warehouse just as he was getting the engine started. Steven threw his car into reverse and stomped on the accelerator. There was a screeching of tires, and he nearly backed up right into a concrete wall. However, he was able to stop his car at the last moment, shifting from reverse to drive.

He pounded on the accelerator again and peeled off, leaving long tire tracks and the smell of burnt rubber in his wake. Pulling out onto the street, he left the warehouse security guards in the dust.

He had gotten away, but he hadn't gotten away _clean._

"This is not going as well as I'd hoped," Steven groaned as he headed for the location where he was supposed to drop the stolen goods off.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Flash was zipping through the streets, having kicked just deeply enough into "speed mode" so that the cars all around her appeared to be moving in very slow motion. She knew from the police scanner what kind of vehicle she was looking for, and what its license plate number was, but she didn't really know where it was.

_Great,_ she thought, annoyed. She'd have to head back pretty soon if she didn't want to run the risk of Jessie discovering that she'd gone out in the middle of the night, but she really wanted to catch this guy. _Okay, have to search the city, street by street._

For anyone else, this would've been a fool's task, and the stupidest possible way to look for her target.

Not for the Fastest Girl Alive.

The Flashed had half of the roads in Keystone searched in under twenty seconds of "real time", although it felt like several minutes to her. She was just about to get started on the other half of the city when she spotted it. A beaten up blue Ford, and unlike all the other cars that fit that description, this one had the right plate number.

_Bingo,_ she thought.

The Flash loosened her hold on the Speed Force enough so that the world resumed moving at normal speed to her eyes, making sure not to lose track of that car. Then, she carefully ran until she was jogging next to it. The guy driving the Ford was going recklessly fast, and he was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white.

_**Definitely **__my thief, then,_ the Flash thought.

"Yo! Buddy! Pull over!" she demanded.

The driver started violently, and his face paled as he turned to look at her with an expression of disbelief. "You _can't_ be here!" he exclaimed, though it sounded more like a plea than a genuine denial. "You're in Japan!"

"I'm the Flash," she said, as though that explained away his objection entirely. Which, of course, it did. "I thought that the getup and the way that I'm keeping pace with your car would've made that obvious. You feeling okay, pal?"

The man didn't respond, at least not with words. Instead, he turned the wheel sharply, causing his Ford to take a left turn. Which, considering he was in the far right lane, was both highly illegal and extremely dangerous.

Horns blared, reminding the Flash of the night she had first exercised her abilities, and the scarlet speedster went into action, kicking back into speed mode instants before the cars that her thief had so recklessly cut off began to collide with one another.

The cars were _far_ too big and heavy for her to do anything about, and the Flash wrote them off without a second thought.

The people inside them were another story entirely. Now in control of her link to the Speed Force, she had all the time she needed to get everyone out of their cars and carry or drag them to a safer location.

Once she was done, she allowed time to restart, and the now empty vehicles collided in a spectacular crash, glass shattering and metal twisting everywhere.

Yet none of the out-of-control wrecks careened into any of the nearby buildings, as the Flash had suspected they might. No hapless pedestrian on the sidewalk was endangered, either.

Finally, the driverless cars all came to a stop. They'd jam up traffic for hours, at least, but there wasn't much the Flash could do about that.

She took off after her thief again, easily skirting the edge of the multi-car pileup. The guy in the blue Ford had managed to put an impressive amount of distance between himself and the crash he'd caused, but it wasn't enough to lose the Flash. Not even _close_.

"All right, jerk, no more Miss Nice Speedster!" she shouted as she drew close to him. "Stop right now, or—"

The guy stuck an arm out the window, and the Flash noted with confusion that he was holding some kind of luminous baton in his hand now. He waved it around, and, to her amazement, a bolt of lightning erupted from the tip of the glow stick. It crackled through the air, leaving the odor of burnt ozone in its wake, and crashed into the wall of one of Keystone's high rise buildings.

"No!" the Flash exclaimed in horror as she watched the wall break, sending great chunks of concrete falling toward the street.

Great chunks of concrete and a young woman who had apparently been just a little too close to her apartment's window.

The crimson comet sprang into action immediately, cranking up her speed so much that the world appeared to come to a dead stop around her. She quickly cleared the street of people, making sure no one would be hit by the falling debris.

Which meant all she had to worry about was the lady who was falling to her doom.

_You know, it's times like this that I wish I could fly, too,_ the Flash thought, then smirked. _A flying girl. As if!_

"Gotta do this just right," she said to herself as she quickly formulated a plan.

Slowing down enough so that the time appeared to start once more, the Flash began to run in a circle around the young woman who was falling to her doom. Almost immediately, a funnel of air formed beneath her, stirring up dust and small bits of gravel.

"Careful, careful," the scarlet speedster said to herself. If she went too slowly, her efforts would be for nothing, but if she went too quickly, then she'd likely send the poor woman catapulting to Kansas City. "Gotta find the sweet spot…"

At first, nothing happened; the woman remained firmly trapped in gravity's thrall. The Flash cautiously sped up, increasing the power of the winds she was creating.

The woman's fall began to slow, but it wasn't enough. The scarlet speedster stepped on the gas, and the miniature tornado she'd spawned gained in strength once more. The woman's descent slowed until it looked like she was falling at an almost gentle speed. The Flash could see her looking around, an expression of confused wonderment replacing the terror that had been on her face a moment ago.

Finally, after what felt like at _least_ a half an hour to the Flash, the woman landed on the asphalt of the street, not receiving so much as a bruise from the whole experience. She had fallen from the eighth floor of her apartment building.

The Flash didn't bother to fire out one of her usual witticisms. Instead, she gave the woman a jaunty little salute and took off, once again in hot pursuit of her thief.

_Now, where is he?_ She wondered, as she raced through the streets. Her gaze quickly fell upon a certain blue Ford, and she grinned. _There you are._

She ran toward the car, but she realized something was wrong before she was within reach of the vehicle. For one thing, it wasn't moving. It wasn't that it didn't appear to be moving because she was going so quickly. It was _parked_. Not a good sign.

A moment later she was next to the car, and her fears were confirmed. The driver had gotten out of the vehicle and taken off on foot, and he'd taken his box of stolen goods with him. She could still search for him, of course, but where before she'd merely needed to scour the roads, now she needed to check every place in the area where a man could hide. It was a significantly larger task, and it would take even her a while.

"Damn, and I should really be getting back to Tokyo-3 by now, too," the Flash groaned.

Much as she hated the thought of departing from Keystone on such a low note, she didn't have much of a choice, not if she wanted to be certain that she could get back before Jessie noticed her absence. That woman sometimes woke up too damn early.

"Next time," she said to the whole city, "perfect game."

With that, the Flash was gone.

* * *

Steven Cunningham didn't know what he found more unbelievable: that he had apparently managed to escape from the Flash, or that he was almost certainly a fugitive from justice by now.

_A lot of good fifty grand will do for me in __**jail**__, _he thought, wondering just what he'd been thinking when he'd agreed to this job. Probably he'd assumed that everything would go smoothly, and that he wouldn't run into _the Flash._

Well, there wasn't much he could do about it now. He didn't think there was any real chance of him evading the police for very long, but if he was lucky, he might be able to make the drop off, find somewhere to stash his pay, and then retrieve it when he got out of prison.

_Dear god, please, let me end up __**anywhere**__ but in Iron Heights,_ he silently prayed, shuddering at the thought of becoming a resident of the infamous penitentiary.

Fortunately, he caught sight of his contact then, and thus he had no more time to ponder his grim fate. The man Steven was supposed to give the package dressed in a black suit, wearing sunglasses, and was leaning against a black sedan. Steven almost would've thought that the guy was a member of the Secret Service or something, if he hadn't known better.

"You Cunningham?" the man asked, looking up.

"Yeah, I'm him," Steven confirmed gloomily. "Here's your stuff. I don't ever want to see it again."

"You won't," the man in black assured him, accepting the cardboard and taking a quick look inside to confirm its contents. Then he dug into his pocket and pulled out a large wad of bills. "Your cut."

"Thanks," Steven said glumly, taking the cash.

Without another word, the black suit took the box and got into his car. A moment later, he was driving off, leaving Steven alone.

"I wonder if they'll give me time off for ratting out Petersen," he mused to himself.

* * *

The next morning found Shinji Ikari walking to school along with Toji and Kensuke, as usual. His two friends seemed to believe for some reason that a great deal of money would be coming their way very soon, and they were talking about how they were going to spend it.

"I definitely need some new sports equipment," Toji said. "You know, pads, shoes with cleats, a new soccer ball. New basketball would be nice, too."

"Hmm, well, I'd really like to buy some new models and stuff, but what I _should_ get is a new camera," Kensuke said. "It would be a good investment."

As usual, Shinji kept silent, but he listened to the conversation more attentively than normal, his curiosity warring with his better judgment. He wanted to know where exactly his friends thought all this money would come from, but, on the other hand, it seemed like it might be wiser to remain ignorant of whatever plan the two other boys were hatching.

He held his tongue until he reached the schoolyard, where they encountered Mari, causing Shinji to instantly forget about his friends' apparent scheming. The American EVA pilot, who was usually bursting with energy, looked exhausted that morning; there were dark blotches beneath her eyes, and her head dropped forward. She seemed ready to fall asleep standing up.

"Mari?" he said.

She looked up, and despite how weary she obviously was, she smiled at him. "Hey! G'morning, puppy-kun!"

He heard Toji and Kensuke snickering behind him, but he ignored it. He was going to get teased about it later, but he'd already resigned himself to that much; once Asuka had learned about Mari's little nickname for him, Shinji knew it was just a matter of time before everyone found out about it, one way or another.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "You look exhausted."

Mari's grin didn't waver. "Aw, you're worried about me. You're so sweet, puppy-kun," she said. "But I'm fine. I just didn't sleep well last night. I'll grab a few Z's during that stupid Impact lecture and be back to my usual self by lunch. You'll see."

Shinji frowned skeptically. "Are you sure you're not getting sick or something?"

"Yeah, if you're coming down with something, you should take it easy!" Kensuke piped up, and Shinji was surprised by how emphatic his bespectacled friend sounded. "If you got really sick, it could really impact your appea—um, I mean, your health." He finished lamely.

Of course, the Third Child had no idea that Kensuke was imagining his potential profits vanishing if the newly arrived pilot became seriously ill.

Mari laughed. "Me, sick? No way! I'm as strong as an ox and as healthy as a horse," she boasted, making a fist and gently thumping herself in the chest, just above her breasts. "I'm telling you, a little nap and I'll be good to go!"

She certainly sounded earnest, but she looked so dead on her feet that Shinji wasn't quite willing to believe her so easily.

"You're positive?" he pressed. "Because you know we have that test for the Dummy System coming up in just a couple of days, and Dr. Akagi said there can't be any germs or anything present."

Mari's grin widened into a smirk, and Shinji immediately realized that he'd blundered, big time, even if he didn't understand _how_ yet.

"Oh, so _that's_ what this is about," the newly minted Fourth Child said, as though she had just figured out the solution to some great riddle. "You're worried that you won't get a chance to get naked with me."

To his left, Kensuke made an audible noise of surprise. Toji didn't make a sound, but Shinji could easily feel the jock's eyes boring into him.

"N-No!" he sputtered. "That's not what I was talking about! I just…I just meant that…"

"So you _don't_ want to get naked with me?" Mari pouted, looking almost, but not _quite_, innocent.

Shinji's mouth moved, but not a single sound came out. To either side of him, Toji and Kensuke observed the whole thing in mute shock.

After a few seconds passed without a response from the Third Child, Mari leaned forward and spoke to him in a faux whisper. "Too bad," she said, and he could feel her hot breath on his ear. The sensation made him shiver. "I was looking forward to it."

Then she abruptly pulled back, gave him a sly smile, and headed off to class.

For several seconds, the trio of boys just stood there, not knowing what to say.

Finally, Toji piped up. "So…is there something you're not telling us, Shinji?" he asked, smirking.

"N-No!" the Third Child exclaimed, more loudly than he'd really intended. "It's just…Mari likes to tease. She's a lot like Misato, that way."

"Man, what do you and _Misato_ get up to, when the devil's not home?" Kensuke asked with a wicked grin.

Shinji's already red face darkened, becoming almost purple. "Guys, it…it's not…bah!" he exclaimed, his frustration and mortification conspiring to completely rob him of the ability to speak.

_And here I thought all I'd have to put up with was them calling me "puppy-kun" for a while,_ he thought, groaning as the otaku and the jock laughed.

Meanwhile, a box full of exotic weaponry was being ferried over the Pacific Ocean on one of the fastest possible planes, and the in the bowels of Central Dogma, the still dormant, microscopic form of the Eleventh Angel stirred, just a little bit.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I realize that it probably would've been better if Mari had been in Tokyo-3 a bit longer before she made a trip back home, but certain events had to take place at this point in the timeline.

Fans of the Flash will know what Steve took from the police warehouse, along with what he used to help him lose Mari. Fans of speedsters in general will probably pick out the numerous references and shout outs in this chapter.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

Omake

Too Far

"Okay, how about this, then? Fifty percent of the gross, and I model for your pictures _in a_ _bikini_," Mari said.

Toji and Kensuke both did a double take. Then, in a display too perfect to have been rehearsed, they simultaneously looked the new girl up and down, traded a stunned glance, then turned back to Mari.

"D—"

Before Toji could agree, Kensuke quickly held up a hand to stop him.

"You can have fifty percent of the gross," the otaku said, "if you pose for our pictures _in the nude._"

Mari's sunny expression suddenly turned dark, and Kensuke knew he'd gotten too greedy.

* * *

_Later…_

"You _had_ to push it, didn't you?" Toji asked.

"Yeah, I went too far there," Kensuke admitted grumblingly. He was tired of being chastised by his friend for this. The jock had been doing little else since he'd decided to up the ante with Makinami.

"All we had to do was say 'yes' and we would've gotten to see her in a bikini, not to mention make a truckload of cash," the jock continued as though he hadn't heard the otaku. "But _nooooo_, you just _had_ to get greedy."

"Okay, yes, it was stupid!" Kensuke exclaimed, finally snapping. "She didn't even seem to realize that most people would consider us taking pictures of her like that and selling them a bad thing! I thought she might not think anything of posing nude!"

"You're an idiot," Toji proclaimed.

Kensuke sighed. "Yeah, well, this idiot would like to know something," he said. "How do we get out of this, and how did Makinami do this to us to begin with?"

Toji didn't respond immediately, taking a second to look over the expanse of Tokyo-3. He had an excellent view of the city, seeing as how he and Kensuke were tied to a flagpole, which itself was situated at the top of one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo-3.

"I don't know, Ken," Toji said. "I just don't know."


	8. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it, and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Seven:** Angels and Villains

Shinji decided that he didn't like the decontamination process very much.

He and his three fellow pilots had each been escorted to separate rooms and then told to strip completely naked. Once they'd done that, they'd discovered that the little rooms were actually elevators, which had taken them through a series of stages, most of which consisted of blasts of soapy water or gusts of warm air to dry them off.

The whole thing struck him as very…industrial. It was like NERV had simply tossed them onto some conveyor belt, and they could do it to a hundred other people if they so pleased. It very much made him feel like he was a widget moving along an assembly line, rather than, say, an actual human being.

It was a depressing thought.

Then, the doors to the little elevator car that he was inside slid open with a hiss, leaving only a pane of frosted glass that reached from approximately his knees to his neck separating him from the very long, very white hallway that led to the Evangelion dummy bodies. Shinji found his thoughts shifting away from such philosophical issues under the weight of his embarrassment at what was happening.

"That was fun!" Mari proclaimed, as bubbly as ever. "Can we do it again?"

"You're insane," Asuka said bluntly.

The Fourth Child ignored her and began to hum the tune to "Carwash."

"I don't see why we have to do this naked!" the redhead added, this time addressing the group of officers and technicians that was listening in from a nearby control room.

Though he would've been lying if he said he didn't understand it, the Third Child didn't appreciate the jab at Mari's mental state. Regardless, he most definitely had to agree with Asuka on the other part.

Of course, Shinji was aware that several of his classmates would have given quite a lot to be in a room with the three female EVA pilots, unclothed, but frankly, he felt more uncomfortable and nervous than anything.

It wouldn't take a lot of provocation to make Asuka turn violent in this situation, and Mari's words from a few days ago were still swirling around his mind.

"We need the data for this auto-pilot system to be as clear as possible, which means eliminating any interference caused by both clothes and microbes," Ritsuko explained over an intercom. "Just showering and wearing your plug suits aren't enough."

"I won't do it!" Asuka proclaimed. "I won't parade around naked in front of—!"

The redhead abruptly fell silent as she heard the distinctive sound of one of the frosted glass panes being slid aside. Mari strode forward casually, as though she wasn't completely nude at all.

But, of course, she _was_. Shinji released a strangled sound of surprise as he took in the sight of her completely bare backside. He remembered to direct his gaze upwards a moment later, making sure to look at the back of her head and only that.

Not that it made much a difference; the image he'd just seen was irrevocably imprinted into his memory already.

"Wh-What are you doing?" Asuka sputtered.

Mari turned her head to look at the other pilots with one mirthful blue eye. "I'm going to my EVA dummy body," she replied matter-of-factly, as though all of them being naked wasn't an issue for her at all. Which, perhaps, it wasn't. "The sooner we get this boring test started, the sooner it'll be over and done with."

With that, she continued her walk to her test plug, having left Asuka speechless.

Meanwhile, Shinji squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried desperately to think unsexy thoughts.

_I can __**not**__ let thermal expansion happen now,_ he told himself sternly, even though he knew he was fighting a losing battle.

* * *

"And this is why I demanded that we only have female officers and techs present for this," Jessie said, sounding exasperated as she watched Mari walking through the white hallway on the control room's main screen.

They had been planning to turn off the camera in there, of course, but the Fourth Child simply hadn't given them the chance.

"You knew she was going to do this?" Misato asked, looking half incredulous and half amused.

"I suspected," Jessie replied wearily. "Mari's not really an exhibitionist, but she's not ashamed of her body, either. And she likes to fluster people, in case you hadn't noticed."

Still, the lieutenant added silently, she was surprised that her charge was pulling such a stunt with a boy in the same room. Jessie normally wouldn't have expected even Mari to do such a thing.

_But because it's that __**particular **__boy…_

The blond officer shook her head. Shinji seemed nice enough, but given their current situation (and Mari's orders from Commander Wells), Jessie wasn't sure if it was a good idea for her charge to be getting close to the Third Child.

Not that there was a whole lot she could actually do about it; their current circumstances dictated that Shinji and Mari would be spending quite a lot of time in close proximity to each other, whether any of them liked it or not.

"Wow. Puberty hit that girl like a sledgehammer," Maya remarked, sounding a touch envious.

"Would you turn that damn camera off already?" Jessie snapped.

"R-Right, sorry," Maya said sheepishly, pushing a few buttons and causing the video feed to wink out.

A few minutes (and many complaints from Asuka) later, and the remaining trio of teens finally managed to get themselves into the Dummy Bodies' entry plugs. Not that Rei had been any issue, of course, but Shinji's shyness coupled with Asuka's angry refusal to give the Third Child a chance to look at her had held things up considerably.

"All pilots are ready and in position," Maya finally reported.

"Hallelujah," a very exasperated Ritsuko sighed. "Insert the simulation plugs and commence data recording."

"Yes, ma'am," Maya said, typing in the appropriate commands.

Inside the Pribnow box, the four plugs smoothly entered the headless Evangelion torsos.

"Connect system to the dummy bodies," Akagi ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," Maya said, "Simulation program has handed over control to the MAGI."

Standing off to the side a bit, Misato looked at the main screen, where data was streaming by far too quickly for a mere human to hope to be able to read. "It never ceases to amaze me," she commented.

Off to the side, Jessie nodded. The most powerful computer in the world, and it was theirs to use for the purpose of saving the world from the Angels.

Ritsuko ignored the two officers, her whole focus on overseeing the experiment. "How does it feel?" she asked the pilots.

"Different," was Rei's succinct response.

"Yeah, it's hard to describe," Shinji agreed. "It's definitely not the same as piloting a real EVA."

"The right arm feel clear, but everything else is fuzzy," Asuka added.

"It's…really weird," Mari put in, sounding oddly subdued, almost as though she found the whole experience disturbing. "The Dummy Body feels so empty. So…soulless."

Ritsuko stiffened. "That feeling just comes from the lack of core data," she said, a bit too sharply. "Just ignore it. We have a lot of work to do."

The bottle blond scientist had the pilots do or attempt to do various things with their simulation bodies before she declared herself satisfied, and everyone sat back for another long and boring test. Despite the change in venue, it looked very much like there would be little difference between this experiment and the average harmonics test.

Appearances, of course, could be deceiving.

* * *

"It looks like corrosion on the 87th protein wall," Aoba said as Vice Commander Fuyutski looked over his shoulder, gazing at his screen on the command center. "See, if I zoom in here, you can see a color change has taken place."

Fuyutski nodded as he observed the brownish stain on the wall. "That area was updated only recently," he commented.

"Yes, sir," Aoba agreed, "but construction was done very hastily, and as a result some air bubbles got in."

"It was right after the Third Angel arrived that that was built," Makoto added. "Everyone was so exhausted with the avalanche of work that came after that, I'm not surprised things were done sloppily around here."

"Well, have it fixed by Tuesday or Ikari will chew my ass off," Fuyutski said.

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Back in the Pribnow box control room, the ominous sound of slowly buckling metal filled the ears of the personnel there. Ritsuko looked around worriedly.

"Is there another water leak?" she asked, exasperation tinting her voice.

"No," Maya answered. "There's corrosion in the 87th protein wall."

"Will it interrupt this test?" Ritsuko asked.

"Not at present, no," Maya said.

"Good," Ritsuko said. "Let's proceed, then. Ikari will chew my ass off if I don't get this data on schedule."

Satisfied that everything was fine, at least for the moment, Ritsuko turned back to the main screen.

Just before klaxons and warning messages began blaring everywhere.

"What's happening?" the blond scientist demanded.

"A contamination alert has gone off for Sigma Unit!" Maya announced, her voice betraying more than a hint of fear.

The Pribnow box was inside Sigma Unit, after all.

"The 87th protein wall has degraded," another technician reported. "Temperature is increasing rapidly."

"There's a problem in the number six pipeline," Maya added. "The corroded area's expanding rapidly!"

"Abort the experiment!" Akagi barked. "Disconnect the number six pipeline!"

"Right!" Maya replied at once, practically punching the appropriate buttons.

They could hear the heavy machinery around them working to isolate the contaminated area. Everyone looked anxiously at Maya, wanting to know whether it had worked.

"Contamination is still spreading!" the tech exclaimed. "It's moving from wall to wall!"

"Ready the polysome," Ritsuko commanded. "Set the lasers at maximum. Fire as soon as the contaminant reaches here."

"Right."

Several small doors inside the Pribnow opened, allowed robots that looked almost like miniature VTOLs to enter. The swarm of machines swam over to where the corrosion was likely to first appear and waited, looking as predatory as a faceless robot possibly could.

Then there was nothing to do but wait.

"It's coming," Maya said as she anxiously stared at her screen.

"They're here," Jessie said, mimicking a line from a horror movie she'd seen once.

"Okay, that's seriously not helping," Misato grumbled.

A scream suddenly tore through the tense atmosphere in the control room, as if the universe itself had decided to play along with the horror clichés.

"Rei," Ritsuko breathed.

"The First Child's simulation body is moving by itself!" Maya exclaimed.

"Impossible!" Ritsuko said.

But, impossible or not, it was happening. Rei's dummy body, which was bolted to the wall like all the others, looked like it was trying to pull itself free. Fortunately, the thick bolts holding it had been drilled into several of the very vertebrae of the body, and it failed to liberate itself from its restraints. Giving up, it lifted one arm and reached out toward the control room.

Maya smashed the thin layer of glass in front of a large switch marked "forced shutdown" and pulled it. Small but powerful explosive charges located in the dummy body's elbow went off, blowing the headless beast's forearm off and stopping its assault before it could begin.

"What about Rei?" Misato demanded.

"She's alive," Maya replied.

"Eject all the plugs!" Ritsuko commanded. "Fire the lasers! Now!"

"Right!"

A series of small rockets in each plug flared, sending the metal containers soaring out of the dummy bodies and upwards toward the ceiling. A large door opened up to allow them to escape and the plugs had soon journeyed out of the base, heading to the safety of the Geofront floor.

Beams of deadly red light shot out from the weapon barrels of the polysomes, striking the rogue simulation body. For a few seconds, no one had any idea what was happening as the water bubbled furiously and hid any effect the lasers might be having.

Then the bubbles cleared up just enough for Misato and Jessie to spot a cluster of hexagonal shields of light protecting the dummy body from the lasers.

"It's an AT field!" Jessie exclaimed,

"That's impossible!" Misato yelled, just as some red, luminescent substance began to grow all over the dummy bodies like an out of control fungus.

"The pattern's blue! It's an Angel!" Maya said grimly.

"We have to isolate the box!" Misato announced. "All personnel, evacuate!"

The various technicians in the room didn't need to be told twice and quickly got up from their chairs and fled toward the exit. Ritsuko was another matter, however. The blonde just stared darkly at the Angel, even as the glass that separated the control room from the Pribnow box began to crack, tiny jets of water starting to spurt in.

"Rits!" Misato said. "We have to go!"

Ritsuko didn't say anything, but she did begin running, and the two just managed to escape and shut the door behind them just before the window shattered and allowed a tidal wave of water to pour into the control room.

"We have to send someone to get the kids," Jessie said as they jogged away from the Pribnow Box.

"No," Misato replied. "They're probably safer where they are than they would be inside the base."

"But the Evangelions—"

"Probably won't be of much help in this situation," Misato cut her off.

"So…you're really just gonna leave them out there until we resolve this…whatever it is?" Jessie asked, barely able to believe it.

"Look, if you want to go and get them, be my guest," Misato replied. "Just remember that Asuka's probably ready to breathe fire right now."

"Okay, fine, we'll leave them there," Jessie relented. "You're the one who has to live with Soryu, after all." She added under her breath.

* * *

Overall, Mari was pleased with this latest turn of events. The whole naked synch test had been proving itself every bit as boring as the regular ones, not to mention very disturbing. The barely restrained rage and ferocity she'd become familiar with during her years of EVA pilot training, the insatiable lust for combat she knew so well had been simply…absent when she'd synched with the Dummy Body. In its place had been nothing but a yawning emptiness so profound that she'd been amazed her fellow pilots hadn't commented on it.

So all in all, she was very happy that the test had ended prematurely.

As for the ride out of the base, well…

"_Wahooooo!_" She cried jubilantly at the sensation of rocketing through the air in her plug. The only thing that could've made the experience better was if she could actually see where she was going, but the plugs systems were all powered down at the moment.

Of course, all good things must come to an end at some point, and Mari's plug eventually crashed to the Geofront floor. The impact would've been potentially fatal if not for the LCL cushioning her against the force of the landing.

Finally, she came to a stop, and things immediately started to get boring.

"Guys?" Mari called out to her fellow pilots. "Puppy-kun? Asuka? Rei? Hello? Can anybody hear me?"

There was no response. Either her plug had landed too far away from the others for her fellow pilots to hear her, or they had all decided to just keep quiet and sit tight until someone arrived with clothing for them.

Of course, keeping still and shutting up simply wasn't the way Mari Illustrious Makinami did things. The Fourth Child reached up, grabbed the lever to open her entry plug's hatch, and pulled.

Partially emerging from the metal tube, the brunette expelled the LCL from her lungs with one well-practiced, explosive cough, inhaling a breath of the forest air in its place. Looking around, she saw that she was indeed on the Geofront floor. The other pilots' plugs were nowhere to be seen, but that could just be the trees blocking her view.

"Well, never mind," she said to herself. There was clearly something weird going on at the base, and she intended to find out what it was. "This looks like a job for…"

She pressed the metal stud on the side of her ring, causing it to pop open and eject her suit. Kicking into speed mode, Mari hastily donned the red and gold garment, putting it on faster than the eye could see.

"The Flash!" she finished, before taking off toward the NERV pyramid, golden lighting crackling around her form.

She'd been meaning to try out that trick Denise had told her Barry Allen could do, the one where he vibrated his molecules to make himself invisible and intangible.

* * *

"The only way to ensure the Angel's demise is to kill its host," Misato said. "Therefore, I am proposing the physical destruction of the MAGI supercomputer."

"Destroying the MAGI means abandoning headquarters," Ritsuko said sharply.

The two women stood before Gendo Ikari in the base's command center, both pleading their respective cases. Ritsuko and her underlings had managed to slow down this latest Angel's attempt to take over the MAGI and initiate the base's self-destruct sequence, but it was only a matter of time before it broke through their digital defenses. All attempts to kill it so far had failed, thwarted by the Angel's incredible adaptive capabilities.

"Abandoning headquarters is better than letting the Angel win," Misato countered.

The two women were openly glaring at each other by this point, and the debate probably would've devolved into an argument of a more…personal nature if Commander Ikari hadn't spoken up.

"Obviously, allowing the Angel to win is unacceptable," he said in a voice the brooked no argument. "Dr. Akagi, unless you have some idea on how to stop this Angel without destroying the MAGI, I have no choice but to take Major Katsuragi's recommendation."

"I do have an idea, sir," Ritsuko said. "If the Angel continues to evolve, I believe we can guide its development down a path that will lead to its own destruction."

"How do we do that?" Misato asked, not even bothering to hide her skepticism.

"This Angel's already evolved so its physiology mimics a computer. That's whay makes it possible for it to hack into the MAGI," Ritsuko answered. "However, that makes it vulnerable to being hacked in return."

"You'd have to use Caper to even have a shot at this," Misato breathed as she realized the implications of what her friend was proposing. "And to do that…"

"We'd eventually have to disable the firewalls between the Angel and Casper," Ritsuko finished for her. "Yes, I'm aware of that."

"It's a gamble on which is faster," Gendo observed. "Casper or the Angel."

"Yes," the scientist acknowledged, "but I'm certain that…"

She trailed off, her attention diverted by the sight of what looked like little bolts of lightning crackling near one of the command center's currently unoccupied terminals.

"You're certain of what?" Misato asked, causing her to focus on the conversation again.

"I'm certain I can do this," she finished.

Gendo paused to consider for only a moment before making his decision. "Do it," he told her.

"Yes, sir," Ritsuko said, immediately moving to get to work. There wasn't a moment to lose if she wanted to pull this off.

But she still made a point of taking another look at that terminal as she went by. This time, it appeared perfectly normal, with no sign that it had ever been shooting out electricity. Yet she was so _sure_ that she'd seen something.

_Must have just been a trick of the light,_ she eventually decided with a mental shrug. _Either that, or I'm going insane. Like mother like daughter, after all._

* * *

"That was way too close," the Flash muttered to herself, already on the other side of the NERV base.

It took a surprisingly high level of concentration to keep her molecules vibrating at _just_ the right frequency to make her a ghost to the rest of the world, both invisible and intangible to everyone around her. It wasn't all that difficult, really, but she'd let her focus wander while she'd followed the conversation going on in the command center.

"Okay, now what?" she wondered.

Unfortunately, this Angel was one that simply couldn't be defeated by hitting it really hard or applying excessive amounts of firepower, which meant she couldn't do a whole lot to stop it, either as the Flash or as the Fourth Child. She hated enemies like that.

They were totally no fun.

"I guess it's intelligence gathering time," she decided. "Especially since there's _definitely_ something rotten going on around this."

She had already noted how the base wasn't at a state of high alert, despite the Angel being _inside_ the place already. Some quick observations only confirmed her suspicion that Commander Ikari was trying to make it look to the outside world that nothing was wrong.

_I can get that he doesn't want people to know he screwed up, but this sort of crap just really isn't kosher, _the Flash thought, zipping through the halls of Central Dogma as she searched for anything that might be of interest. _Really, how the hell does he expect to get away with this?_

The Commander had already gotten Jessie off the command center by giving her some stupid make-work assignment, the Flash noted as she passed by her guardian. Still, it was blindingly obvious to anyone with half a brain that _something_ was wrong, and keeping Jessie away from the action wouldn't change that.

_Commander Wells is definitely going to be hearing about __**this**__,_ the Flash thought. _Now let's see if I can find anything else to tell him…_

* * *

Jessie Quinn was not having a very good day.

Of course, any day an Angel struck _and_ she was assigned the job of overseeing the Strategic Operations command center was a bad day.

_Why does this place even __**have**__ a Strategic Ops command center, anyway?_ Jessie wondered irritably, glaring around the room. All of NERV's battles were tactical in scale, so the place _never_ saw much use. Everything of any importance was conducted from the base's control room.

"What are your orders, ma'am?" one of the junior officers who worked the place asked her nervously, obviously having picked up on her stormy mood.

"Commander Ikari wants us to scan the surrounding countryside for Angels," she answered, voice tight. She would not vent her frustrations on these hapless kids, she told herself sternly. She would not. "He's concerned that the enemy might sneak up on us while we're experiencing these technical problems. So, please, get to work, ladies and gentlemen."

The group of technicians in the room raced to comply, glad to have something to do and a reason to avoid making eye contact with her. Jessie huffed quietly and made her way over to the command chair, plopping down in it.

It wasn't being given such a dumb job that had her in such a mood; goodness knew that anyone in the military had to learn to deal with busy work. Jessie had pulled her fair share of it in the past, and she would likely pull her fair share of it in the future.

Nor was the issue that she was away from the action. She knew there wasn't a whole lot she could do to help in this situation.

No, it was the implications of Ikari's actions that did it.

_He's going to lie to the Committee—to everyone—about an Angel getting in here. He's going to try and pass all this off as some glitch in the MAGI or something,_ she thought. _Damn it, Wells was right._

Though she was far too smart to say so, she had never fully believed in her former Commander's theory about NERV Central. Some of the things he'd told them about the organization were admittedly troubling, but Jessie hadn't seen any evidence that Gendo Ikari was planning to go renegade at some point.

In the end, all Commander Wells had proof of was that the people running NERV Central liked to keep others in the dark about the details of their operations. That wasn't terribly surprising; NERV was forced to use child soldiers to fight the Angels after all, and the military had a tendency to indulge in secrecy for its own sake. She didn't see why a paramilitary organization like NERV would be any different in that regard.

_But this is too damn much,_ she thought, gripping the armrests of her chair in a tight hold. He'd sent her to the Strategic Ops command center to keep her from seeing anything after he'd ordered the base to stand down from red alert because he didn't want her reporting back to the Pentagon about the whole mess. If he'd allowed her to stick around, she could've told her superiors in Washington that she knew for a fact he'd lied. With her banished to this place, he retained some level of plausible deniability, at least.

Still, while Ikari could potentially be relieved of duty if the UN found out an Angel had made it inside, he could be _imprisoned_ if there was ever proof he'd lied about it.

_No ones take that chance, unless he really does have something to hide and can't have inspectors combing the base,_ she thought.

Of course, all this added up to one inescapable conclusion. Gendo Ikari wasn't just a grouchy hardass with an overblown reputation, and NERV Central really _was_ a nest of vipers.

And Mari was right in the middle of it.

_I can't protect her from the Angels,_ she thought, _but I'll be damned if I let Gendo Ikari get to her._

* * *

"Man, who would've ever guessed that being a spy could be so _boring_?" the Flash groaned aloud as she finished looking through one of the filing cabinets in the records room.

She had long ago given up on hacking into NERV's protected files. Even with the MAGI in complete disarray, there was just no way she was getting past the security measures. As such, she'd been forced to start sifting through the paper files the organization kept.

Unfortunately, she had discovered that NERV committed almost _nothing_ interesting to paper. Spending records showed that money was being siphoned into dubious projects with very vague names and descriptions, but that was hardly the most exciting thing in the world. It could very well be indicative of somebody high in the chain of command skimming off a bit of the budget for themselves.

Given the size of the bureaucracy NERV required, and the vast amounts of cash the organization had to work with, the Flash would've been far more surprised to find out that no one was doing that. And while embezzling was a crime, it wasn't the type of thing she was looking for.

"For crying out loud, these people have a secret underground base and a collection of giant robots," she grumbled to herself. "You'd think they'd have a plan to take over the world or something _somewhere_."

Of course, she knew that there was one place she hadn't checked yet, namely Terminal Dogma. There was no doubt in the scarlet speedster's mind that NERV had the _really_ interesting stuff down there, but she was reluctant to trek down into the sub-basement herself.

Mostly because if she found anything down there, she couldn't tell Commander Wells about it without being questioned about how she'd managed to gain access to Terminal Dogma in the first place. She could explain away any discoveries she made in Central Dogma by saying she'd gone snooping, but it was understood that only a handful of people in NERV Central could even _get_ to the lowest section of the base, and Mari Illustrious Makinami wasn't one of them.

Just as she was about to venture down there anyway, alarm klaxons started to blare.

In the blink of an eye, the Flash put all the hard copies of the records back exactly where she'd found them and went rocketing toward the command center, running straight up three elevator shafts to cross the distance in the minimum amount of time.

The place looked different than it had when the Flash had last been there. The MAGI Casper had been raised out of the floor, exposing all sorts of wiring and machinery and allowing access to the guts of the supercomputer.

"The Angel's taken over Balthazar!" she heard Makoto shout the instant she kicked out of speed mode.

"Artificial intelligence has proposed self-destruction," announced the calm, digitized voice of the MAGI themselves. "Self destruction will commence in thirty seconds if all three MAGI units unanimously approve."

"The Angel's invading Casper!" Aoba called.

"Twenty seconds until self-destruct," the MAGI announced.

"Casper will be taken over in eighteen seconds!" Aoba added.

The Flash zipped inside Casper, careful to keep herself invisible the whole time. Misato and Ritsuko were seated inside the cramped space within. The blonde was furiously typing at a keyboard while the Ops Director merely sat there looking nervous, apparently reduced to being the scientist's gopher.

"Hurry, Ritsuko!" Misato urged her.

"I'm trying," the blonde replied tersely, "but this isn't going as well I as would have hoped. According to my calculations, I'll be one second too late."

"You've _got_ to be kidding me!" Misato groaned.

The Flash never heard her; she was already on her way back to the Pribnow Box by this point, intent on slowing down the Angel by whatever means necessary. Reaching the now sealed blast doors to the test chamber in under a second, the crimson comet took a deep breath and then phased through the door to the now flooded chamber.

The water slowed her down significantly. The Flash was a strong swimmer, despite having grown up in one of the driest parts of the United States, but even she was slowed by the resistance from the water. With her still in speed mode, the stuff seemed to become as thick as jelly.

Yet still she pressed on, making her way toward the remains of the Dummy Bodies. The Angel covered their flesh by this point, creating golden circuitry over the tanned flesh.

_Just need to slow it down for a second or two,_ she told herself as she swam over to it, carefully adjusting her vibrational frequency so she'd be solid but not visible. She fired a punch at it.

Only to have a myriad of tiny, hexagonal shields form and protect the Angel from her fist. Eyes widening, the Flash struck again and again, but she couldn't actually touch the thing. Its AT Field stopped her every time.

_Well, crap,_ she thought, gritting her teeth with frustration.

If she was on dry land, there would be any number of things she could try to get around this problem, but being in the water severely limited her options.

The lack of air wasn't helping anything, either. The burning sensation in her lungs made it abundantly clear that she'd have to leave soon.

Just as she was about to bolt from the watery chamber, she noticed something that made her stop. At first she thought it was just some trick of the light or her oxygen deprived brain, but the longer she looked at it, the more certain she became that she was actually witnessing it.

She could see little bolts of crackling energy traveling across the Angel's quasi-circuits.

_How could that be, though?_ The Flash wondered. _It's impossible to see electrical impulses like that, and even I'm not __**that**__ awesome._

But it wasn't really electricity, she realized as she continued staring at it. Just like the golden lightning that crackled over her body whenever she ran wasn't electricity. It was speed.

Speed Force energy. She'd thought that only she had it, but was it possible that everything that moved possessed a least a little bit of it?

Well, she could leave that question for another day; now was a time for action. The Flash reached for the Angel, this time with an open hand, and just…_tweaked_ her connection to the Speed Force a little.

Some of the pseudo-electricity she saw coursing through the Angel flowed into her, and for a brief moment, she and it were connected by a thin stream of crackling energy that completely ignored the AT Field.

Then the pain in the Flash's lungs became too much, and she was forced to retreat from the Pribnow Box. Once she was out, she headed back for the command center, friction drying her off long before she reached her destination.

"The Angel's slowed down!" she heard Makoto gasp in surprise the moment she kicked out of speed mode.

"Recalculating how long we have until it's taken over," Aoba added. "We should have an extra three seconds!"

_Damn, it worked,_ the scarlet speedster thought, looking down at her gloved hand. _I actually stole some of the Angel's speed. Denise never mentioned Barry Allen or Jay Garrick being able to do that._

At this point, most people would have contented themselves with discovering a new superpower and having saved the day. Most people would have called it quits, gone back to the entry plug, and waited for "rescue."

The Flash wasn't most people. She wanted to do the other half of the experiment.

She knew that she could _take_ speed. Now she wanted to know if she could _give_ speed, too.

Crawling into the MAGI once more, she made her way back to where Dr. Akagi and the Major were working. Both of them looked very much as they had when the Flash had left them, which wasn't much of a surprise, considering that was less than 30 seconds ago in real time.

Taking a deep breath, the scarlet speedster concentrated, trying to reach out and tweak the Speed Force much as she had the last time, except she was trying to do it in _reverse_ this time.

Thins tongues of golden energy crackled around the scientist's already blurred fingers, and her tying speed increased dramatically. It was only because Ritsuko was so intent on her computer screen that she never noticed anything unusual was happening.

"Maya!" Akagi yelled as she finished up, a whole seven seconds ahead of when she'd expected. "Now!"

"Right!" the tech called from outside the supercomputer.

Both women stabbed the enter key on their respective keyboards at once, just as the countdown reached two seconds.

There was a long, terrible pause in the command center as everyone waited to see whether Ritsuko had succeeded or not. Everyone held their breath, as though afraid to make the slightest sound.

"Self destruct was cancelled by the artificial intelligence," the MAGI announced. "All systems returning to normal modes."

Cheers erupted from the command center, while Ritsuko simply leaned her head back and sighed in relief.

"You did it, sempai!" Maya exclaimed joyously.

_With a little help from the Flash!_ The scarlet speedster thought as she finally began to head back outside.

* * *

_Three days later…_

"Stealing and loaning speed?" the voice of Denise Myles came over the Flash's earpiece. "No, I never heard of either of the previous Flashes doing that."

"I'm telling you, Denise, it totally happened," the Flash said as she raced through Tokyo-3. "I was looking at the Angel, and all of a sudden I could _see_ its speed. So I reach out, and it's all, like, _whipow_, and suddenly it's moving a little bit more slowly. And then I went and did it backwards, making this other lady a tiny bit faster. I _saw_ the lighting, bud."

"I'm not saying it didn't happen, but—"

"Whoa, hang on a sec," the Flash said. "Purse snatcher."

The crimson comet raced over to where she saw a young man robbing an older lady. Before the guy could take ten steps away, the Flash was on him, snatching the purse back. She quickly returned it to its owner, then stopped the would-be thief cold, binding his arms and legs before he even realized what was happening. Then she was on her way again.

But not before giving the purse snatcher the worst wedgie he'd ever experienced. Just because he'd decided to pick on a little old lady.

"Anyway, you were saying?" the Flash asked.

"I'm starting to understand why none of your predecessors ever had a sidekick," Denise sighed. "Anyway, I said that I'm sure it happened, but none of the other Flashes could do it. Maybe you have powers that neither of them did."

"Wow, cool! Is that even possible?" the Flash asked.

"I don't see why not," Denise said, and the scarlet speedster could almost hear the shrug. "Barry Allen had abilities that Jay Garrick never did. It almost seems like the Speed Force is, I don't know, evolving sometimes." She added distantly.

"Sweet," the Flash said. "So how are things back home?"

"The whole city's _still_ buzzing about you, Mari!" Denise answered excitedly. "Uncle Dexter's having a statue of you made for the museum—one of the colored fiberglass ones to put inside, not one of the stone ones. There's even talk of observing Flash Day for the first time in forever! You _gotta_ come home if the city decides to do the parade. Everybody would go totally crazy to see you there."

"A parade, for moi?" the Flash asked delightedly. "You know I'd be there!"

"Awesome," Denise said. "I'm gonna hold you to that, you know."

"I know," the Flash said. "Anyway, I have to go. I'm late for my photo shoot."

"…photo shoot?"

"Peace out," the Flash said, pretending not to hear the last part as she cut off her radio link to her friend.

_She should probably get to bed anyway,_ the scarlet speedster told herself. _It must be the middle of the night over there._

Drawing near to the Aida residence, she ducked into an alleyway to make a quick change to a simple jeans and blouse combination. Once her costume was tucked securely inside her ring again, Mari walked the last couple of blocks to the place Kensuke called home.

"Nice digs," she remarked to herself as she reached the well maintained and surprisingly large house.

She knocked, and Kensuke answered the front door almost immediately, with Toji right behind him.

"Hi, Mari!" the bespectacled boy greeted her excitedly, while the jock conveyed his own, more subdued hello. "Come right in. Dad's not here, so we've got the whole place to ourselves."

"Hey, boys," she said as she shed her shoes by the door. "Sorry I'm a little late."

"Don't worry about it," Kensuke replied. "We knew you weren't gonna back out on us, not after how you wanted to do this as soon as possible."

Mari smirked slightly. Though she wasn't the least bit anxious about what she was about to do, the only reason she'd insisted on doing the photo shoot sooner rather than later was because she needed the money. So far, she'd been more or less maintaining her weight by hitting the various all-you-can-eat sushi places in Tokyo-3, but her bottomless pit of a stomach had been steadily earning her lifetime bans from them. It wouldn't be long before none of them would let her in the door anymore.

_I have to get these photos taken while I still have curves to show off,_ she thought.

"What can I say? I know a good business opportunity when I see one," Mari replied.

"Oh, you definitely do," Kensuke agreed, rubbing his hands together. "I have everything set up downstairs. Please, follow me."

He led her and Toji to basement, and Mari was again impressed by the Aida household. Instead of bare cinderblock walls and a washer and dryer combo, she found a well furnished apartment.

"Nice place," she commented.

"Yeah, Dad's been wanted to rent it out for forever, but with everybody moving away from the city, it just isn't happening," Kensuke said. "Which is good for us, because today it gets to be my studio." He added, gesturing toward an area where he'd put up all his equipment.

"Wow, great setup," Mari said, impressed. "It even looks professional."

"Well, of course it does!" the bespectacled boy said, looking half pleased and half indignant. "Most of this stuff is professional grade equipment."

The EVA pilot didn't know about that, not being into photography herself. All she knew was that the lights looked exactly like the ones she'd encountered during every school picture day, the ones with the things that looked like umbrellas on them.

"Okay!" Mari said, clapping her hands together. "No point in just standing around. Let's get started!"

With that, she took hold of the bottom of her blouse and pulled it up and over her head, revealing the pink bikini top she had on underneath. After tossing the shirt carelessly onto a nearby couch, she undid the button on her hip hugger jeans and wiggled out of them.

Toji and Kensuke's jaws dropped. Watching Mari undress was totally different from ogling the girls in their class from afar when they had to swim during gym class. The less than modest string bikini the bespectacled girl wore was about as different from the school's one piece suits as possible while still being swimwear, and none of the other girls in their class were built like Mari was.

"Whoa," Toji breathed so softly only Kensuke could hear him.

"Yeah," Kensuke agreed, just as quiet.

"There we go," Mari said as she tossed her jeans off onto the couch with her shirt. She turned back to the two boys, flouncing her hair. "Where do you want me?"

Kensuke's mind _instantly_ plunged straight into the gutter.

_On the couch, then the floor, then against the wall…_

One glance at Toji, who had sunk down onto a nearby chair, told the otaku that his friend's mind had followed almost the exact same path.

"To pose?" Mari added with a knowing smirk when he failed to answer after a few seconds. "Where do you want me to pose?"

"Oh, um…hang on a sec," Kensuke said, somehow dragging his mind back to the task at hand. Moving quickly, the otaku dragged out a sturdy wooden box and covered it with a pale yellow piece of fabric, then unfurled and hung up a large piece of cloth with the image of some tropical locale to serve as the background. "There we go."

Mari sauntered over to the box, sat on it, crossed her legs, and then gave Kensuke a sultry look. The average supermodel would have killed for the ability to replicate it. "Oh, Mr. Photographer, I'm ready for my close-up," she said in a smoky voice.

It was too much for the otaku. The camera he'd just picked up slipped out of suddenly numb fingers, and the next thing he knew, he was laying on the cold basement floor.

"Oh, geeze, Aida, are you okay?" Mari asked.

She sounded a lot more normal now, which was to say that her every syllable didn't drip with sensuality, but Kensuke's brain was still too overloaded for him to make any sort of coherent reply.

Rolling her eyes, the EVA pilot got up off the box and walked over to him. Grabbing two handfuls of his shirt, she easily hoisted him to his feet, demonstrating a surprising strength.

"There you go," she said, dusting him off. "Listen, Kensuke, I know you're overwhelmed by my hotness, but we have a job to do here. And remember, if you're losing it, just think about baseball."

_God, she thinks she's joking,_ the otaku realized, even as he managed to stammer out some form of agreement. _Shinji, you are one lucky bastard. I would be this girl's puppy dog any day!_

"Oh, by the way, you might want to grab a tissue," Mari added as she walked back to the box. "Your nose is bleeding."

He reached up and felt his lower lip, discovering that she was correct. Surprise, surprise.

Toji's nose was bleeding, too, he noticed. He grabbed a Kleenex to wipe his nose with and then tossed the box to his friend.

"Ready when you are," Mari told him.

He took a deep breath, grabbed his camera, and tried to recall who'd won the last Giants game. "Let's begin."

The sound of his camera clicking filled the basement after that, and the otaku found the time flying by. Mari was a natural model, and she seemed to love the camera almost as much as it loved her. Kensuke didn't call an end to the shoot until he'd filled up every scrap of film he had in the house, which was far more than he'd originally planned to use.

"Okay, that's it. We're done," he said at last, wiping at his nose with a tissue again. That nosebleed never had stopped, either for him or for Toji.

"Cool," Mari said, hopping off the box. "When can I expect my first cut of the profits?"

"Um," Kensuke struggled to think straight. "I can get at least some of these developed by Monday, so me and Toji can start selling them. We'll divvy up the money for the first week on Friday. How's that sound?"

"Works for me," Mari replied as she grabbed her clothes and began to dress. Which, honestly, Kensuke considered one of the saddest sights he'd ever seen.

_Well, all good things…_

Once again fully clothed, the EVA pilot looked expectantly at the two boys. "Well? Aren't you going to walk me to the door?"

Toji and Kensuke gave her incredulous looks. Both boys were feeling weak and woozy from all the blood they'd lost over the previous hour.

"On second thought, I'll just see myself out," Mari said, grinning knowingly at them, as though she'd read their minds. "Catch you guys on Monday!"

With that, she bounced up the stairs and was gone, leaving two rather overwhelmed boys in their wake. Kensuke allowed himself to collapse onto the couch, where he sat limply.

"Give that girl a couple of years," Toji spoke up eventually, "and she'll be even hotter than Misato-sama."

For the two founding members of the Cult of Katsuragi, this was nothing short of blasphemous. However, after the photo shoot, Kensuke just couldn't bring himself to disagree.

"God, why does Shinji get all the luck?" he wondered.

* * *

Mari hummed cheerfully to herself as she departed from the Aida residence, deciding that Shinji's friends were almost as hilarious as he was, even if they came off as a bit more immature.

_I hope those pictures sell well,_ she thought as she stepped out into the sunshine. _If they don't, I'll be eating Jessie out of house and home soon, and I just know she'll realize something's up._

Well, she decided, that was a problem for another day. At the moment, she had the rest of the afternoon spread out before her, and she intended to make the most of it.

"I wonder what Puppy-kun's up to today," she mused aloud, right before she turned a corner and saw it.

A massive plume of smoke was rising in the distance.

Mari wasn't sure, but she thought it was coming from somewhere in Tokyo-3.

_It can't be an Angel. They would have called me already if it was,_ she realized immediately. _Which means that this is a job for…the Flash!_

She pressed the button on the side of her ring, and once again, her costume popped out and rapidly began to expand. Kicking into speed mode, Mari got changed in a fraction of a second and was soon racing through the city streets, turning on her police scanner as she went.

"Calling all units, calling all units," the dispatcher spoke. "Report to the corner of 15th and Main. Four perpetrators are assaulting citizens and destroying property. Be advised, suspects are armed with exotic weaponry and should be considered _extremely_ dangerous."

"Fifteenth and Main, got it," the Flash said to herself, switching off the scanner. "Wonder what she meant by 'exotic weaponry'?"

The crimson comet shrugged it off, increasing her speed. She was sure she'd find out when she got there, which should take her approximately three seconds.

The Flash had just about reached the scene of the crime when she slipped. The scarlet speedster let out a cry of surprise as she went tumbling, her momentum causing her to bounce painfully along the ground several times before she finally came to a halt.

"What the hell?" she groaned, sitting up and rubbing her head. "I fell?"

She hadn't fallen since she'd managed to really get a handle on her super powers, so what had happened?

_And why is my butt so cold?_

She looked down, and her eyes widened at what she saw. Part of the street was covered in a thin layer of ice.

It had to be more than eighty degrees outside.

Then the Flash turned her gaze to the rest of the area, and she did a double take. The entire street was the very portrait of chaos. Many of the nearby buildings were half destroyed, and of those that were intact, half were on fire while the other half were encased in solid ice. People were running through the streets screaming.

"Well, well, it's the guest of honor!" someone called from nearby, and the Flash immediately turned to look at him.

"No way," she breathed. She _knew_ the blue and white parka the guy was wearing. She'd seen it on one of the figures at the Flash Museum in Keystone City.

"We had almost given up hope that you'd show," the man continued, gesturing to his three companions, who were also dressed in rather garish outfits.

The Flash recognized their costumes, too. "The Rogues," she said, as she got to her feet. "You guys are the Rogues."

"The new and improved versions," the one in the parka said, and Mari realized that they were indeed far too young to be the original versions. Not to mention that they were all Japanese. "We're here to kill you, Flash."

An almost feral grin spread over the scarlet speedster's face, and golden lightning started to crackle over her form.

"Bring it on."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** First off, a quick note on the powers of the Flash. While it's not exactly common for any of them to do the whole "invisible and intangible" thing, I know that Barry, at least, has shown these abilities a few times in the history of the comics. It's not something I plan to have Mari do frequently, though. The stealing and loaning speed thing were powers that Wally discovered. Since Mari effectively replaced Wally as the third Flash in this continuity, I felt it appropriate that she learn these powers, too.

As I wrote this chapter, I came to realization (which should've been obvious in hindsight) that Mari needs someone else around to bounce off of, someone to react to the kooky things she says and does. Unfortunately, the Eleventh Angel just isn't a very chatty foe.

Fortunately, the Rogues will be. Place your bets folks: the newest super speedster on the block, or NERV's handpicked replacement Rogues. The no-holds-barred battle begins next chapter.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

* * *

Omake

Should've Read the Tag

Of course, keeping still and shutting up simply wasn't the way Mari Illustrious Makinami did things. The Fourth Child reached up, grabbed the lever to open her entry plug's hatch, and pulled.

Partially emerging from the metal tube, the brunette expelled the LCL from her lungs with one well-practiced, explosive cough, inhaling a breath of the forest air in its place. Looking around, she saw that she was indeed on the Geofront floor. The other pilots' plugs were nowhere to be seen, but that could just be the trees blocking her view.

"Well, never mind," she said to herself. There was clearly something weird going on at the base, and she intended to find out what it was. "This looks like a job for…"

She pressed the metal stud on the side of her ring, causing it to pop open and eject her suit. Kicking into speed mode, Mari hastily moved to don the red and gold costume.

Only something wasn't quite right.

"The hell?" she grumbled, looking at the garment, which never grew beyond the size of doll clothing. "It shrank? But what on earth would cause it to shrink…?"

Then she remembered that she'd just gone through Crazy Gendo's Industrial People Washer not a half hour before.

"Crap," she muttered. "I guess it's not machine washable…"


	9. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Eight: **The Rogues Reborn

Most people would have felt that the Flash's current situation was…less than desirable, to put it mildly.

Mere minutes ago, she had had a free afternoon ahead of her, and her only immediate concern was the question of what to do with it. Now, she found herself in the middle of what could only be described as a disaster area, facing down the new versions of four of the Rogues, some of the previous Flash's most dangerous foes. She had frankly never expected to run into such people, and so she hadn't bothered to learn about how her predecessor had dealt with them. It didn't help matters that the leader of these new Rouges had just told the Flash that they intended to kill her.

Most people in the Flash's position would have cursed their bad luck.

Fortunately, the Flash wasn't most people.

_This is __**so**__ cool!_ _God, I love my life,_ she thought, without the slightest trace of sarcasm.

"Game on," she whispered, more to herself than to them.

For a brief moment, the third Flash and the new Rouges hesitated, sizing one another up. The scarlet speedster's blue eyes darted around as she picked a target. Her gaze landed on a Rouge wearing a white, one-piece outfit that covered almost his entire body, along with a pair of green goggles. A remarkably small orange flamethrower, no larger than a big pistol, was clutched in his hand, a small flame flickering around the barrel.

_Heat Wave,_ the scarlet speedster thought, having learned enough from her tour through the Flash Museum to at least identify these guys. He must've been the one who'd set half a city block on fire. He'd get to taste the sidewalk first, she decided.

The moment she decided that, his gaze met hers, and the Flash could instantly tell he _knew_ he was first.

_You and me, Hot Stuff,_ she thought.

He managed to raise his weapon and pull the trigger at the exact moment that she kicked into speed mode. The world dragged to a crawl around the scarlet speedster, and the plume of orange flame erupting from Heat Wave's gun—which normally would've spanned the distance between the Rouge and his target in the blink of an eye—emerged and grew in slow motion, deadly and beautiful.

The Flash easily dashed around the still modestly sized ball of fire and punched Heat Wave right in the side of the face, allowing time to speed up back to its normal rate the instant after her gloved fist made contact with him.

With a cry, the firebug went crumpling down to the ground, his gun flying out of his hand to land on the sidewalk, where it lay, a tiny flame flickering by the mouth of the barrel.

"Looks like the first hit is mine, guys," the scarlet speedster cheerfully boasted to the three Rouges who were still standing. "You _sure_ you wanna do this?"

At her feet, Heat Wave spat a bloody tooth out onto the street.

Scowling, a guy in a an orange and green outfit stepped forward, gripping some truly bizarre gun. He pulled the trigger, and rather than the bullet or death ray that the Flash had expected, there was instead a brief but blindingly bright pulse of light that left the scarlet speedster blinking away spots.

_Whoa, I'm seeing double here,_ she thought, _or triple…or quadruple. Or…whatever-duple!_

At least two dozen copies of the guy in the terrible costume stood before her now, each of them brandishing his pistol threateningly.

"Mirror Master!" the Flash exclaimed, snapping her fingers as it finally came to her. "That's who you are!"

"You get a gold star," the many copies of the Rogue said in unison, before opening fire.

_Now_ the death beams came, but the Flash was running _long_ before they reached her position. She must've beaten them by at least 12 milliseconds, if not a full 13.

"Damn, why are there never multiple copies of the _cute_ guys around?" the crimson comet wondered aloud, even as she nimbly dodged all the weapons fire that the multiple copies of Mirror Master could throw at her.

"Hey!" the Rouge barked, offended. "How do you know I'm ugly? This mask covers most of my face!"

"Okay, point," the Flash conceded, as she continued to dodge. Mirror Master was apparently getting smarter, she noticed. When he'd started, all his duplicates had fired at a single, easily avoided point. Now they were all just firing in the same general area, which meant she had to avoid an entire barrage. It really got her blood pumping. "But I can still safely say that you are _totally_ not my type. Plus, you're too damn old for me."

Mirror Master, all of him, just growled in response to that. It sounded almost like a swarm of bees.

He kept varying the spread of his weapons' fire, trying to find that sweet spot where even the scarlet speedster couldn't avoid all the beams. He wasn't doing this for very long before the Flash decided that she'd had enough of him.

"I know a girl who likes older men," she said, as she worked out the best way to take this one out. "But I don't think I'll be hooking the two of you up. We're not best friends or anything, but I still think she deserves a lot better than _you_. You're a bad guy, and not even a very _good_ bad guy. Which totally makes sense."

The taunts must've gotten Mirror Master riled enough to throw him off his game, because the pattern of the deadly beams loosened for just a moment.

A moment was much more than she needed. Escaping from the deadly cage, the scarlet speedster ran straight toward the side of nearby building, then sprinted straight up the wall as though the law of gravity simply didn't apply to her. Before she'd gone very high up, however, she stopped for just the briefest of instants. She bent her knees, then sprang back into a standing position, launching herself off the wall.

"Cannonball!" she yelled, curling her body into a ball as she went somersaulting end over end toward the stunned Mirror Master and his team of duplicates.

Of course, the landing to the crazed maneuver was something she never would've been able to pull of successfully under normal circumstances, but with the Speed Force bending to her will, anything was possible. The crimson comet kicked into speed mode a moment before she hit the ground, and suddenly her fall was happening in super slow motion.

Unfortunately, that made the whole thing significantly less exciting, the Flash mused as she uncurled her body and landed lightly on her feet. She consoled herself with the knowledge that stunt had doubtlessly looked absurdly awesome to the Rouges.

Once she was firmly back on solid ground, she allowed time to speed up, just enough for her to take in the gob smacked look on the face of all the Mirror Master duplicates. She'd landed right in the middle of the crowd, and she had caught all of him by complete surprise.

"About 25 against one," she observed, cracking her knuckles. "Not a very fair fight. Guess I'll just have to use only one fist."

With that, she began to whiz around, from one Mirror Master to another, throwing punches at each of them in turn. Each one she hit instantly winked out, revealed for the hologram that it was. Then…

"Argh!" the real one cried as her fist finally made contact with real flesh.

She'd apparently been moving just a tad bit faster than she'd thought, because the force of her blow lifted Mirror Master clean off his feet and sent him flying a good three yards, eventually coming back to the ground with a satisfying thud.

"Whew," the Flash said, shaking out her hand. Her knuckles hurt, but in that good way that let her know she'd been kicking ass recently. Then she turned to look at the prone form of Mirror Master. "Oh, by the way, your sense of fashion is terrible, too. You're really just completely undatable there, pal."

Barely conscious, the Rogue didn't seem to mind the jab much.

"Okay!" the Flash said, turning to the remaining two. "Who's next in line for—?"

A bolt of white lighting erupted from the clear blue sky before she could finish, streaking down straight toward the Flash. The scarlet speedster managed to get out of the way in time, of course, but it was a closer thing than she would have liked.

"Cheap shot!" she shouted, glaring at a Rouge in a green and yellow costume that was almost as ugly as Mirror Master's getup. Tongues of electricity crackled around him, and he held some sort of strangely familiar, glowing baton skyward.

_Weather Wizard,_ she thought.

The man didn't bother responding to her accusation, instead he just waved the wand again, and another blast of lightning slammed downwards. Now expecting it, the Flash had no difficulty whatsoever in dodging the bolt. Undeterred, Weather Wizard unleashed several more blasts of thunder, but the Flash didn't even break a sweat.

"This is weak, Wizard!" she called to him. "I could do this all day! 'Lightning fast' is just a way of life for me, in case you hadn't noticed!" she added, proudly pointing at the thunderbolt emblem on her chest.

Just then, the guy in the blue and white parka—Captain Cold—raised his weapon and fired, aiming not at her, but at the street. An instant later, a thin layer of ice had formed on the ground, including the part of it that was directly beneath her golden boots.

"Ruh-roh," she muttered to herself as Weather Wizard raised his wand skywards.

Lightning struck, and the Flash moved—she had no choice. With ice beneath her feet, the result was inevitable; the scarlet speedster slipped and went tumbling to the ground, landing in a heap.

"Hey! No fair using combos!" she yelled.

"What makes you think we care about fairness?" Captain Cold demanded. "We're the bad guys, you ditz!"

"And you actually admit it," the Flash noted.

Captain Cold responded to that with another blast from his gun. The Flash easily scrambled to her feet and was away before it struck, leaving a great chunk of ice at the spot where she'd been. However, before she could counterattack, Weather Wizard started sending buffeting winds at her, so powerful that it was hard to stay on her feet while she was running directly into them.

_He's playing defense for Cold,_ she realized, as she was forced to break off her attempt at attacking the new Rouge's leader.

Which was seriously bad, because she really needed to get in a shot at Cold soon; every blast from that damned gun of his encased another piece of her surroundings in ice. Pretty soon, there wouldn't be any place where she could run without slipping and falling on her butt again.

_Maybe I could find a way to melt some of this ice,_ she thought, her mind moving even faster than her feet as she went over every possibility she could think of.

Turning, she saw that Heat Wave had gotten back up, and he was leveling his gun at her.

_But not that way!_ She thought.

Heat Wave fired, and the Flash moved to dodge. She would've been successful, too (of course), if he'd actually aimed directly for her. However, the fire bug had apparently taken a page out of Captain Cold's book and aimed for the ground before her. Caught by surprise, the scarlet speedster attempted to run straight through the flames, but things didn't work out quite the way she had hoped.

"Ugh! What the hell?" she exclaimed as she suddenly found herself forced to a stop, her feet refusing to rise off the ground all of a sudden.

The Flash looked down, eyes widening at what she saw. The soles of her boots, which had always stood up to all the abuse she put them through so well, had partially melted and were now firmly glued to the asphalt beneath her feet.

"Sayonara," Heat Wave said before he opened fire again, this time pointing his weapon directly at her.

A great plume of flame erupted from the barrel of the weapon and went flying toward the Flash. Reacting immediately, the scarlet speedster raised her arms and began to spin them, just like she had done to put out that fire back in Kansas. The powerful winds she generated held back the intense flames, but only barely.

Content that she was more or less safe from the fire so long as continued her efforts, the Flash dared to look toward Captain Cold and Weather Wizard. Unsurprisingly, both of them were less than a second away from attacking her.

A blast of absolute zero and a bolt of lightning went streaking toward the Flash, along with the never ending wave of fire.

With a loud grunt of effort, the scarlet speedster managed to pull her boots free, leaving a substantial amount of rubber on the street. Avoiding Cold's attack, she rushed straight toward him, delivering a savage kick to his midsection that sent him sprawling, clutching at his gut in pain.

Yet no sooner had she floored Captain Cold than the other Rouges started to attack her all at once, including Mirror Master, who had somehow managed to stumble back to his feet, looking dazed but still functional.

_Damn it, three on one is not cool!_ The scarlet speedster thought as she moved crazily to avoid all the attacks. If only she could get up to top speed, she could probably take them all out fairly easily, but it was difficult for even her to do that when she couldn't run in a straight line for more than two or three steps before she had to change direction.

Before the crimson comet could figure out a plan of action, the sound of sirens could be heard, and red and blue flashing lights were seen in the distance.

"It's the police!" Weather Wizard exclaimed.

"Yeah? So what?" Heat Wave asked, smirking, even as he kept a continuous blast of fire shooting in the Flash's general direction. "What can they do to stop _us_?"

"Idiot," Weather Wizard spat, not for a moment letting up with the barrage of lightning. "These costumes aren't bullet-proof. Besides, if they're coming here even after what we did so far, I'll bet they're packing the big guns."

"He's right," Captain Cold said, still clutching his stomach as she struggled to his feet. "We need to get out of here. Mirror Master?"

"Right," the other Rouge said, raising his own weapon and pointing it at a miraculously intact storefront window nearby. He fired a beam of light out of it, but the mirror didn't break. It shimmered oddly for a moment, then went back to normal. "Let's go."

The Rouges slowly retreated toward that storefront window, keeping up their attacks on the Flash every step of the way to prevent her from getting too close. Finally, when they reached their destination, Weather Wizard leaped straight _into_ the window, and rather than simply shatter the glass into a million pieces, he vanished as though he'd never been there at all.

"Hey!" the Flash yelled, as she realized they were getting away. "You can't just run away! It was only starting to get really fun!"

"Sorry, kid," Captain Cold said, as Heat Wave and Mirror Master also hopped through the window and disappeared. "Play time's over for today. We'll be back, though."

With only one Rogue left, the Flash dared to try and head-on attack, charging forward and deftly avoiding the blasts of absolute zero that Captain Cold continued to send her way, even as he himself stepped into the glass.

"I'm not done with you!" the Flash screamed, taking a flying leap toward him.

Captain Cold finished stepping through the window just the barest fraction of a second before the Flash reached him, and suddenly the glass ceased to be a portal to who knew where. Suddenly, it was just an ordinary pane of window again.

The sound of glass shattering sounded throughout the small, currently empty shop as the Flash crashed straight through it. Either through dumb luck or the power of the Speed Force, the scarlet speedster managed to avoid enduring a single cut, but she did end up doing a painful and less than graceful belly flop onto the tiled floor of the shop.

"Ow," she groaned, as she pulled herself to her feet. "That was…a less than awesome finish." She decided, shaking her head to clear it.

Sirens and flashing lights reminded her of the presence of nearby police. With a small sigh of frustration, the Flash kicked back into speed mode, racing away from the disaster area the Rouges had created. She moved far too quickly for the cops to even see her, let alone stop her.

"So, you'll be back, huh?" she muttered to herself, thinking of Captain Cold's last words to her. A feral grin spread across her face. "I can't _wait_."

* * *

Pulling up to the gate of Tokyo-2's US embassy in her new unsexy little car, Jessie Quinn could only think about how much she wished it was in Tokyo-3, instead.

Not that the commute was so unbearable. Indeed, it was only twenty minutes either way, assuming that traffic didn't work against her too badly. However, she was quickly growing to hate being even this far away from her ward, when there could potentially be an Angel attack at any moment.

An Angel attack, or possibly even…something else.

It was the "something else" that brought her to the embassy that afternoon.

"Afternoon, Lieutenant," the soldier at the guard booth greeted her politely. "You're expected. Commander Wells wishes to speak with you via video uplink ASAP."

"Thank you," Jessie said, not bothering to point out that being summoned by Wells was the whole reason she'd driven to Tokyo-2 that day to begin with.

Pulling into the embassy, she quickly found a parking space and wasted no time in making her way to the high-tech video conference room, which was empty of everyone besides herself. With a soft sigh, she sat down at the large wooden table and switched on the control panel that was set into it.

"Please state your name and rank," a clearly electronic voice came from a small speaker in the panel.

"Jessica Quinn, First Lieutenant," she spoke as slowly and clearly as possible, knowing how finicky these damned things could be.

"Analyzing voice print," the computer announced, then hesitated for a moment. "Voice print match. Retina scan required."

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Jessie instead leaned down toward the panel, holding her eyelids open. A small beam of light emerged and quickly swept over her eyeball.

"Retina scan match. Identity confirmed," the computer said. "Please wait one moment, Lieutenant."

Her rank at the end came out sounding clipped, spoiling the already tenuous illusion that an actual person was speaking to her, not just a recording.

A second later, the large screen mounted on the far wall of the room came to life, exposing a weary looking Commander Wells.

"Sir," Jessie said, rising from her seat and saluting crisply.

"At ease, Quinn," Wells replied, motioning for her to sit back down, which she did. "It's good to see you."

"The same to you, sir," Jessie replied. "Though I must confess I'm surprised you decided to summon me now. What time is it over there, anyway?"

Wells rubbed his eyes and scowled. "Not what you'd call a civilized hour, that's for damn sure," he answered. "Still, I'm sure you've endured a few sleepless nights yourself. I thought I wouldn't add to them by calling you during the middle of the night your time."

"Thank you, sir," Jessie said, actually touched by the gesture.

Wells waved her gratitude off. "I've been burning the midnight oil as it is, anyway," he said. "But my sleeping habits aren't what I called you here to discuss."

Jessie had thought not. "You've read my report concerning the 'malfunction' in the MAGI that mimicked an Angel alert?" she asked.

Wells nodded. "Yes, and I also passed the information up the chain of command."

"And may I inquire as to what you and your superiors decided, sir?" Jessie asked carefully.

The Commander of Bethany Base sighed, grabbing a coffee mug that looked almost big enough to double as a kiddie pool, and Jessie realized for the first time just how truly exhausted he was. No doubt he'd been involved in a very large number of talks and conferences lately.

"We all came to about the same conclusion you did," Wells said. "Ikari lied, blatantly, and almost certainly for more than just to cover up his people's screw up. There's no doubt in my mind he's up to something. Unfortunately, we have no proof that NERV Central actually killed an Angel after they sent you away, instead of just rebooting the MAGI like Ikari says they did."

"So nothing will be done?" Jessie asked, disappointed but unsurprised.

Wells scowled. "Doesn't look like it," he answered. "I've gone so far as to personally petition the White House to whip our intelligence agencies back into shape, but so far all my efforts are getting is a few token gestures. If I keep at it, I'll be labeled a paranoid nutcase, at least until new evidence of Ikari's true intentions surface."

Jessie noticed the unsaid suggestion immediately. "Pilot Makinami is doing her best to carry out the assignment you gave her, sir," she rushed to reassure him. "So far, however, she has found no evidence to suggest that Pilot Ikari is privy to any secret plans his father may have."

The blond officer decided not to mention that the Fourth Child seemed to have developed a genuine affection for the Third, which Jessie was increasingly suspecting was more than platonic.

"I know, Lieutenant," Wells said, seeming to soften at the reminder of Mari.

"What are your orders, sir?" Jessie asked.

"For now, continue on as you have been," the Commander answered. "Take any reasonable chance to gain more information, but _be careful_. You and Makinami may have very limited access to NERV Central, but you're the only eyes we've got in there that I trust absolutely."

"I understand, sir," Jessie said.

Wells nodded. "Dismissed, then."

The lieutenant saluted again, and the video link terminated, leaving her looking at a blank screen.

Her conference with Wells thus over, Jessie made her way out to her car and away from the embassy, barely bothering to exchange salutes with the guards as she left. As soon as she was out onto the main highway that linked Tokyo-2 and Tokyo-3, she pressed down hard on the accelerator, reaching speeds and performing maneuvers that might've made even Misato cringe. All in all, she was able to make the usually twenty minute drive in under ten.

Once she was back in Tokyo-3, it didn't take her long to reach NERV headquarters, where she stalked through the halls of the pyramid, her dark scowl sending any hapless techs who were unfortunate enough to cross her path heading in the opposite direction.

_I hate this,_ she thought angrily.

Watching Mari face off against the Angels, potentially world destroying monsters, and knowing that she would have to do so several more times in the near future was bad enough. Yet it was a trial she had known was coming, and she had prepared herself for it, as best she could anyway.

But to think that the people who were supposed to be their allies in the war against the Angels might be a threat to Mari, to the person that Jessie had come to view as her only family in the world…that the young EVA pilot might become inconvenient to Gendo Ikari somehow and that he'd have her disappeared…

_No,_ Jessie thought, clenching her hands into fists. She couldn't just sit around while her ward bounced around the lion's den; she had to do something.

Still, Jessie intended to follow Commander Wells' orders. It was just that she planned to use a very Mari-like interpretation of the "be careful" part.

Turning a corner sharply (and very nearly bowling over a young man who was dressed in the uniform of the NERV maintenance crew), she spotted her target, who was lounging around near a bank of vending machines.

"Ryoji Kaji," she said, and he looked up at her. "Just the man I wanted to see."

A sly smile crept over his face. "Is that so?"

Jessie abruptly moved toward him, invading his personal space as she brought her lips close to his ear. She had to admit she was rather pleased when he had the decency to flinch slightly.

Of course, to anyone watching them from the nearby security camera she'd already taken note of, it would just look like a man and a woman having an intimate moment.

"I need to talk to you, away from all the listening devices," she whispered.

"I see," Kaji replied, and she could practically hear his eyebrows rising. "Then why don't you meet me outside in, say, fifteen minutes? There's a little patch of land on the far side of the lake that I frequent. I'm sure you'll be able to find it easily enough."

"Right," Jessie said curtly, then pulled away from Kaji and walked off, heading for the exit from the pyramid.

As the long haired man had predicted, the lieutenant had little difficulty locating the meeting place. Jessie could only shake her head in bemusement as she came upon the modest watermelon patch, unable to believe that Kaji apparently took the time to plant and maintain such a thing.

_Honestly, what is it about the Japanese and watermelons, anyway?_ She wondered as she waited for him to arrive.

A few minutes later, Kaji came sauntering over, that sly grin having made it's way onto his face once more. "Hello, again, Lieutenant," he greeted her with mock formality. "So, what did you need me for so desperately?"

Her eyes narrowed. "First off, cut it out with the whole playboy thing," she said. "Misato likes her men scruffy. I prefer mine more clean shaven."

"An unfortunate result of spending so much time in the American military, I'm sure," Kaji quipped. "You probably prefer your men with buzz cuts, too."

"Can you be serious?" Jessie asked, growing exasperated. "At all? For even a few seconds?"

"Fine," Kaji said, finally relenting. "What do you want?"

Rather than answer him directly, Jessie walked over to the watermelon patch. Picking up a large one, she examined it closely, as if she actually knew something about growing the things.

"It occurs to me," she said thoughtfully, "that you don't actually do very much work around here."

"Is that so?" Kaji asked in a very neutral tone of voice.

"Oh, yes," Jessie answered. "I mean, I'm not exactly overburdened myself. I probably won't ever command NERV forces during an Angel battle, unless something happened to Misato. But at least I help her deal with the Operations Department's paperwork, and I'm Mari's guardian, of course. But you? You're not looking after Asuka anymore. Aside from pushing a little paper now and then, I'm not sure if you even _have_ any official responsibilities around here."

Kaji did a remarkably good job of keeping his cool, Jessie noted with grudging respect. "So?" he asked.

"I'm sure you do things besides tending to these watermelons," Jessie said, finally putting the one she was holding down. "In fact, I think you're a spy." She finally came out and said it.

"And what do you plan to do about suspicion?" Kaji asked. "Report me? You have no proof of anything."

"I don't want to report you," she said. "I want to join you."

"What?" he asked, finally looking surprised.

"Look, there's something rotten going on here," she said. "That last Angel—oops, I mean 'computer glitch'—made that abundantly clear. I don't know what Ikari's planning, but I'd bet he'd have no problem with taking out Mari if he felt she was between him and his goals. And that's not happening, not while I have anything to say about it."

Kaji was silent for a long moment, just looking at her. Jessie met his gaze evenly, and eventually the long haired man broke their impromptu staring contest, reaching into his pocket to produce a cigarette.

"Let's say for the moment that I am a spy," he said, sticking the cigarette into his mouth and then taking out a Zippo, which he used to light it. "Why should I let you join me in my efforts to discover the truth about NERV? You haven't even said please." He added with a smirk, doing a remarkably good job of speaking clearly even as he kept his smoke clenched between his teeth.

"I can help you," Jessie said. "I have special ops training."

"Hmm, I suppose you do, at that," Kaji conceded. "Let me make a couple of calls and get back to you in a few days."

"Thanks," Jessie said, nodding.

"No promises," Kaji warned her. "But, here, just to ensure that there's no chance of you leaving our encounter completely empty-handed…"

He broke the stem on one of the larger watermelons in his patch and handed it to her. Jessie took it with some reluctance, suspecting that he'd snapped back into his default "lady's man" mode.

_I guess it would be rude to just turn it down,_ she thought. _And god knows it won't go to waste. Mari's been a bottomless pit lately. Teenagers._

"Thank you," she said.

"My pleasure," Kaji replied.

The man seemed intent on tending to his watermelon patch for a while, so Jessie turned, heading back toward the pyramid. She felt just the tiniest bit better about the situation she and Mari had found themselves in now.

However, she had barely taken ten steps away from the melon patch when she stopped and turned her head to glare at him.

"I can _feel_ your eyes on my ass, you know," she said.

Kaji actually had the decently to look a little chagrined.

"Just to let you know," Jessie continued, "back when Misato and I were doing Spec Ops together, I once found myself facing a seven-foot-tall former Green Beret turned mercenary. Unarmed. I had him on the floor and coughing blood in under thirty seconds. Look if you must, but don't touch."

With that, she turned and resumed her walk back to the NERV pyramid, free watermelon in hand.

* * *

The graveyard was…desolate. That was the only word that Shinji could use to describe the place. Uniform headstones jutted out of dry, dusty earth with not a bit of greenery to be seen. Shinji wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if someone had told him that not even bacteria lived there; it seemed like he and his father were the only living things in the entire place.

That, coupled with the presence of his mother's headstone nearby, made Shinji feel intensely lonely.

"It just hasn't sunk in that Mother's resting here," the Third Child said softly as he placed a small bouquet of flowers down by the grave.

He was half surprised when they didn't shrivel up and die the moment they made contact with the barren soil.

"She's not," Gendo said.

"Huh?"

"There is no body here," his father replied. "The headstone is just decoration."

"I see," Shinji replied, then hesitated for a moment before speaking again. "Do you have any pictures of her?"

"No, I destroyed them all shortly after she passed," Gendo replied.

"So, what my old guardian told me is true," Shinji said, almost more to himself than to his father. "You threw them all away."

"I keep everything I need within me," Gendo said, his tone carrying just a trace of sharpness. Despite himself, Shinji winced. "Yui taught me about the irreplaceable things. I come here to reaffirm that."

"I see," Shinji said, even though he didn't, at all.

Gendo checked his wristwatch. "It's time. I have to go."

As if on cue, a VTOL descended from the clear blue sky, somehow finding a patch of earth in the cemetery that was empty enough for it to land without damaging anything. Its engines kicked up an enormous cloud of dust.

Without a word, Gendo headed for the plane. So far as he was concerned, the visit to the gravesite with his son was functionally over, the obligation taken care of for another year.

"Father," Shinji called.

Gendo turned. "Yes?"

"I…I'm glad we had a chance to talk like this," Shinji said.

"I see," was his father's minimalist reply.

Then Gendo climbed into the VTOL, and the Third Child just managed to get a glimpse of Rei through one of the plane's windows before it took off. Moments later, it was a tiny speck in the crystal blue sky, then it vanished entirely from his sight.

Now entirely alone in the graveyard, Shinji hesitated for a moment, his father's abrupt departure having left him feeling strangely at loose ends. Eventually, however, he concluded that there was simply nothing more for him to do in this place. With a small sigh, he headed for the gates.

_That could've gone worse,_ he decided, trying to console himself about the whole encounter. Unfortunately, his mind quickly ventured down more negative avenues of thought. _Of course, it could've gone a whole lot better, too._

Though, in hindsight, he didn't think it really could have gone better than it did; he'd been foolish to hold out any hope for some kind of father-son bonding moment. So, Shinji mused, it had really been the best realistic case scenario which had just played out.

_Somehow, that's not very uplifting,_ he thought.

He stepped through the gates of the cemetery, leaving the place of death behind him, and Shinji felt his spirits rise as he so, albeit very slightly. The sunlight outside the oppressive graveyard seemed a little bit brighter, the air just a tad fresher and sweeter. That stifling place had seemed almost surreal in nature, and Shinji felt like he was reentering the real world, now that he was free of it.

"Hi, Puppy-kun."

That "back in the real world" feeling instantly left Shinji, who quickly whirled about. There, standing less than five feet away from him, was Mari Illustrious Makinami, clad in a simple shorts and blouse combination and eating strawberry pocky.

"Mari?" he blinked stupidly. "What are you doing here?"

"I noticed that you've been gloomier than usual lately, Puppy-kun," the brunette replied, pointing at him with the last stick from her box of sweets as she walked over to him. "So I started asking around the base, and I found out that this is a pretty sad day for you. So I thought I'd cheer you up." She added with a smile.

Shinji couldn't help but notice that Mari seemed to have turned down her characteristic boisterousness just a tiny bit, her voice becoming unusually soft and gentle.

"Thanks," he said, "I appreciate the thought, a lot, but I don't really want to be cheered up today."

"Aw, c'mon," Mari urged, her smile widening. "I promise you'll be glad I showed up by the end of the day."

"No, thank you. Maybe some other day, Mari," he said, then turned on his heel to walk away.

Only to find himself suddenly nose to nose with the American EVA pilot.

"Wah!" he exclaimed, jumping back a step. He turned, as though expecting to find Mari's identical twin standing behind him, but of course there was no one there anymore. "How did you do that?"

"That's not important," Mari said with a dismissive wave. "Are you _sure_ I can't convince you to do something with me today?"

Shinji's shoulders slumped. "You're not going to take 'no' for an answer, are you?" he asked.

Grinning, Mari crammed the last stick of pocky into her mouth and tossed the box into a nearby garbage can. "I'll tell you what, Puppy-kun," she said. "I'll leave you alone for today, _if_ you can look me in the eye and tell me you won't spend the rest of the afternoon brooding."

"Uh…" Shinji stammered, knowing he wasn't that good of a liar.

"I thought so," the bespectacled girl said triumphantly, placing her hands on her hips.

"Fine," Shinji grumbled. "You win."

"Cool!" the brunette said. "C'mon, Puppy-kun. We'll have you all cheered up again in no time, or my name's not Super Awesome Girl."

"It's not," Shinji pointed out.

"That's just your opinion," Mari said with a dismissive little wave, "and you didn't even know you were 'Puppy-kun' until I told you, so really, who has more credibility here?"

Shinji rolled his eyes. "So, you have something planned, then?" he asked, falling in step beside her as she started walking down the street.

"Yup," Mari replied.

"And what is that?" the Third Child asked, not sure if he was more touched or annoyed by what the bespectacled girl was doing.

"Puppy-kun! I can't tell you that, it would ruin the surprise," Mari replied, shaking a finger at him.

"I see," Shinji said, deciding that he was currently leaning toward annoyed.

For several minutes, the two walked down the street together, Shinji with his hands jammed into his pockets and offering only minimal responses to everything the Fourth Child said. Normally, he would have felt obligated to at least try to be better company, but under the circumstances he was just resentful enough to not care if Mari's little plan for the afternoon crashed and burned.

Not that the brunette seemed to mind very much. In sharp contrast to his gloomy silence, she maintained a steady stream of chatter about everything from EVA to American pro wrestling. While he trudged along, Mari bounced about, as though she just had too much excess energy to simply walk in a straight line.

"So back when I was about 10 or 11, all the boys in my class got together during recess to play football," Mari was saying. "I asked if I could play, too, and this jerk Bobby Franks says I can't because I'm a girl, and girls are too fragile to play football. So I told him…"

Blinking, Shinji took his hands out of his pockets and started to pay slightly more attention to her than he had been. Not because he'd suddenly become particularly interested in her anecdotes (in truth, he'd barely been listening to her), but because Mari had actually started doing cartwheels down the sidewalk, all without pausing or interrupting her storytelling in any way.

"So, long story short, I totally kicked Franks' butt at football, and my team beat his by something like 56 to eight," continued Mari, who ceased doing cartwheels and started walking on her hands. She barely seemed to have any more difficulty doing that than she did with walking on her feet. "Of course, Franks swore eternal vengeance upon me. But pretty soon after that I started growing boobs, and all of a sudden he was too busy ogling my chest to keep up the whole 'endless hostility' thing."

Shinji felt his face heat slightly, though not nearly as much as it would have if he'd actually been following Mari's story. The brunette's shirt wasn't tucked into her denim shorts, so her current position was causing it to fall down. At the moment, there was no danger of her bra being revealed, but her taut midriff was still left exposed. Not only that, but her current position and her rather brief, tight shorts were affording him an excellent view of her long legs and tight rear end.

"You're…pretty good at that," he remarked, more to distract himself than for any other purpose.

"Hmm?" Mari frowned slightly, not immediately getting what he was talking about. Then realization dawned. "Oh, you mean the whole walking on my hands thing. Yeah, back when I was a little kid, Jessie signed me up for this gymnastics and acrobatics class."

"Really?" Shinji asked. "I'm surprised that you had the time for it. I mean, I would've thought that NERV would have you in an EVA simulator every minute you weren't at school or asleep."

It certainly seemed like NERV did that to him, sometimes, Shinji mused. He'd been told in no uncertain terms from the very beginning that sync tests and Evangelion training would preclude him from joining any of the clubs or other extracurricular activities at Tokyo-3 Municipal Junior High School.

"Well, I don't know how they do things around here, Puppy-kun, but back at Bethany, they wanted to make sure I was fit," Mari explained. "Of course, I was six when NERV recruited me as a pilot, and even Commander Wells wouldn't send a six-year-old to boot camp. So they had Jessie sign me up for some of the most physical activities she could find. There was the whole gymnastics and acrobatics thing I mentioned, swimming, martial arts classes, and even yoga—though I didn't like that last one and eventually Jessie took me out of it. They wanted me to be strong."

Before Shinji could make a reply to that, Mari abruptly flipped herself back onto her feet, then started running forward. Shinji had no idea what she was doing until he spied a long metal pole that was bolted to the side of a building just ahead of Mari.

With one gigantic, running leap, the brunette managed to grab hold of the horizontal pole with both hands, even though it had to be a good six or seven feet off the ground. The pole wobbled violently from the sudden addition of Mari's weight, and for a terrifying second, Shinji thought she was going to fall. He rushed forward, as though to catch her, but Mari managed to hold on and the pole eventually stabilized.

_Geeze, who was I kidding, anyway?_ He thought. _I never would have been able to get to her in time, if she had fallen. Who do I think I am, the Flash?_

Now that Mari (who didn't appear the least bit perturbed at how narrowly she'd avoided tasting the pavement) was steady, she extended her legs, keeping them perfectly parallel with the ground, and started cranking out smooth, form perfect chin-ups. She must have done at least a dozen of them by the time he reached her and she dropped down, nimbly landing on the sidewalk next to him. She wasn't even breathing hard, he noticed.

"Well, you could definitely beat me up," Shinji observed. He was trying for a tone of dry humor, but the words came out sounding more self depreciating than anything.

"I dunno know about that. You were the one who held up the sky, after all," she pointed out. "Besides, you're way too cute to beat up, Puppy-kun."

Shinji blushed. "Th-thanks," he said. "So, um, can you still do…gymnastics stuff?"

"You mean all the flippy, twirly junk? Nah, most of the time I can't do it anymore," Mari said.

Shinji frowned slightly at that, wondering how she could be capable of doing it sometimes and not at others. But he saw the little smirk on her face, as though she was inwardly laughing at some private joke, and he decided not to ask.

"Once I turned ten, they took me out of all those classes and started me with modified versions of military training," she continued. "Besides, these days I think I'm a little too top heavy to be a gymnast, anyway!" she added, gesturing to her bust.

Shinji blushed so deeply he turned purple and didn't even try to say anything until they reached their destination several minutes later.

"An amusement park?" he asked.

"Yup, and I know exactly the thing in there that will cheer you up the fastest," Mari boasted. "C'mon, Puppy-kun."

They arrived at the entrance, and Shinji reached for his wallet, suddenly feeling awkward. It suddenly occurred to him that this sort of, almost seemed like a date, but he had no idea if etiquette required him to pay in this particular situation.

Fortunately, before he could do anything, the brunette reached into her pocket and withdrew her own wallet. Shinji's eyes widened when he saw the way it was bulging with yen notes. He almost asked her where she'd gotten all the money from, then thought better of it at the last moment.

"Here ya go, Puppy-kun," she said, handing him a ticket.

The two of them entered the park, and Shinji allowed Mari to lead the way, content to go wherever it was she wanted. At least, that was, until he realized what their destination was.

"What is that?" he asked as he craned his neck to look up at the massive rollercoaster at the center of the park.

"That, Puppy-kun, is the _Bone Crusher_," Mari said, smiling gleefully and rubbing her hands together in unbridled anticipation.

Shinji could actually feel the blood draining from his face. "It…it's huge," he said.

"It's the biggest, tallest, _fastest_ rollercoaster in all of Nippon," she said. "I checked."

"Oh," Shinji said in a small voice. "I see."

"Well, c'mon, let's go!" Mari said.

"Uh, Mari, I'm not sure I really want to…I mean, fast rides really aren't my sort of thing," he stammered.

"Don't be crazy, Puppy-kun," Mari replied. "That thing will have a smile on your face in no time. Promise."

With that, she grabbed hold of his wrist and started to drag him toward the entrance to the ride. Shinji made some effort to resist, but as she had demonstrated only minutes ago, Mari was amazingly strong for her size. Despite his anxiety, he had too much dignity to start literally thrashing and screaming in an effort to get out of going on the rollercoaster. So, he had little choice but to let himself be pulled along.

Despite how crowded the park was, the line for the Bone Crusher was surprisingly short. Probably, Shinji mused, because most people were sane enough to take one look at the thing and decide not to ride on it.

Unfortunately, he was more than tall enough to ride, and within a couple of short minutes, he and Mari were seated next to each other in one of the cars. The safety bar came down, and Shinji immediately gripped it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Mari, on the other hand, bounced up and down in her seat with excitement, but otherwise she looked as relaxed as she would have been riding a public bus.

The cars started moving, at a modest pace at first, and then slowed down even further as they started to ascend one of the inclines in the track. Shinji held his breath as they reached the apex…and then went rushing down.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed as they once again slowed down. "Okay, that wasn't too bad, really." He added, more to himself than to anyone else.

Mari released a loud giggle. "Oh, Puppy-kun, you're so funny."

"Huh?"

"That was just the warm up!" she said, her eyes sparkling. "Look."

She pointed ahead of them, and Shinji released a strangled sound as he realized another incline that was much, _much_ steeper than the one they'd just gone down loomed in front of them. The peak looked like it was brushing up against the clouds.

"Oh god," he groaned.

"Don't try to resist it, Puppy-kun," Mari cooed. "Just give in and feel the Gs."

He swallowed.

The cars started climbing again, and Shinji wildly tried to figure out some way he could get off the ride before it started going down. Unfortunately, all of the ideas he came up with seemed even more suicidal than just riding on the Bone Crusher, if such a thing was possible.

The car reached the top of the metal peak and paused for a brief, terrible second. Mari grinned so wide it looked like she was in danger of splitting her face in two. Shinji released a tiny moan and squeezed his eyes shut.

The cars _surged _downwards at a seemingly impossible speed, the Third Child screaming while the Forth squealed delightedly. So great was the height from which they descended that the cars maintained a breakneck pace for most of the rest of the ride, even on the parts when they were going uphill again. It didn't really start slowing down until they neared the end.

"Oh man, wasn't that _great_, Puppy-kun?" Mari asked as she got out. "I gotta tell ya, I've ridden some pretty cool roller coasters in my time. A few were better than this one but not many. The Bone Crusher's definitely making the official Makinami's Top Ten list."

Shinji didn't answer. Instead, he staggered out of the car, walking drunkenly until he reached a nearby concession booth, which he placed both hands on and leaned against heavily. His head was bent down, hiding his face from Mari's view.

For the first time since she'd decided to take Shinji on the Bone Crusher, the brunette felt just a tiny bit worried that she might've made a mistake. She hoped he wasn't about to puke.

"Puppy-kun? You okay?" she asked, walking over to him.

Shinji abruptly stood up and turned to look at her. There was a wild gleam in his blue eyes and a huge grin on his face. "Let's do it again!"

"_Yes!_" Mari shouted, jumping up and down in excitement. Shinji couldn't help but observe the way this made certain parts of her anatomy bounce pleasantly. "I knew you were cool, Puppy-kun! Let's go!"

She took his hand—Shinji blushed, but Mari didn't notice—and headed for the line to get on the ride once more. This time, the Third Child was happy to go with her.

* * *

"You people are idiots," Captain Chiron said.

The four members of Section Two he was addressing all winced. The chief of their department hadn't raised his voice at all, but that just made it even worse. Experience taught that a quiet and angry Chiron was _far_ more dangerous than a loud and angry Chiron.

It also didn't help matters that it was just the four of them, in a room that was isolated from the rest of the base, with a man who had won a reputation for being utterly ruthless during his days working for Japanese intelligence. Usually when Chiron went on the warpath because his people had screwed up, the blame was at least diffused among a dozen or so agents.

Of course, since there were only four men in the new Rogues, well, there was no reason for any other agents to be present.

Chiron pressed a button on a small remote he held in his hand, and a screen mounted on the far side of the room came to life, displaying scenes from their battle with the Flash. The quartet of agents winced. Though in hindsight they realized that they should have expected the Chief of Section Two to have the confrontation monitored, somehow they'd all thought that Chiron had only had their reports about the incident to go off of.

"You morons _took turns,_" Chiron hissed, pointing at the screen. "Half the damn reason the original Rogues were as successful as they were was because even the previous Flash had difficulty juggling so many battles at a time."

"We…started to work together, toward the end there," one of the agents spoke up timidly.

Chiron whirled on the man, who flinched back. "Hirose," he said. "Out of all the possible candidates for this taskforce, you were the only one who had actually shown competence in the past. That was why I made you Captain Cold. That's why I made you the leader. It's also why, when you told me that you could handle things, I trusted you and gave you a free hand with this assignment."

Hirose did his best not to openly cower beneath Chiron's cold gaze. It wasn't easy; once again clad in a black suit rather than the blue and white parka, the man found himself feeling oddly diminished.

"You lied to me, Hirose," Chiron said.

"N-No, sir," Hirose said. "I thought I could do it."

"As if it mattered," Chiron growled. "You four idiots totaled half a city block, alerted the Flash to your presence, and gave her experience dealing with you. And for what? Nothing."

None of the agents dared to argue.

"Obviously, it was a mistake on my part to trust your judgment, Hirose," Chiron continued. "Therefore, I will be taking a much more active role in this taskforce. I want all of you to report to me at 0500 tomorrow, for training. Dismissed."

The four agents immediately rose, needing no encouragement to make their escape. They had all expected much worse than this.

"Oh," Chiron said before they could get out, as though he'd just remembered something. "I suggest that each of you wears a cup."

The agents all grimaced, gloomily agreeing before they finished making their retreat.

* * *

Almost despite himself, Shinji Ikari had to admit that he was feeling much, much better than he had immediately after he'd left the cemetery. In fact, he felt better than he had in over a week.

Clearly, there was something to Mari's rollercoaster therapy. They had ridden the Bone Crusher a total of three times, and Shinji would've been up for a forth, if he hadn't started feeling nauseous after the third one. The brunette had suffered from no such problems (as the enormous amount of carnival food she'd eaten since then clearly showed), but she'd started getting bored with the rollercoaster and had agreed to move on to something else.

At the moment, the two of them were walking around the park, looking for that something else.

"Hey, buddy!" a man in a booth containing a carnival game called to Shinji. "Win a prize for your girlfriend?"

"Um," Shinji stammered, "she's not really my…"

"Oh!" Mari exclaimed before he could finish, rushing over to the booth. "Look at them, Puppy-kun! They're so cute!" she pointed to the stuffed Godzilla plushies of varying sizes that were lined up around the booth, the prizes for winning the game.

_Really?_ Shinji thought, since "cute" was about the last word he would've used to describe the stuffed dinosaurs. Still, he supposed, it was Mari he was dealing with.

Meanwhile, the guy working the booth was biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing at Mari's pet name for the Third Child. "So, what do you say, son?" he asked once he'd composed himself, obviously sensing an easy few bucks in his future. "It's a simple game. I'm sure you could win a prize for the lady."

Taking a look at the booth, Shinji had to agree that the milk bottle game did look straightforward enough. The signs around the booth clearly explained that knocking down the top row of bottles won you the smallest prize, knocking down the second row got you the medium-sized one, and taking down all the bottles would earn one of the largest plushies.

Still, the few times Shinji had found himself pitching in a baseball game (all such incidents had occurred during PE class at his previous school), his performance had been less than stellar.

"Please, Puppy-kun," Mari pleaded, batting her lashes at him coquettishly.

Shinji almost pointed that she was clearly the more athletic of the two of them, and she would thus have a far better shot at winning this game than he would. Then he realized just how…unmanly that would sound.

Wordlessly, he took out his wallet and placed a few bills on the counter between himself and the man running the game.

"That's the spirit!" the guy said enthusiastically, taking the money and handing the Third Child a trio of worn baseballs.

Taking aim, Shinji lobbed the first ball, only to miss the bottles entirely. Chuckling weakly in embarrassment, he threw the second ball, and this time he struck the middle of the small pyramid, taking down the top row and most of the second one. His odds of winning the top prize for Mari didn't look good, but he still tried for it anyway.

Unfortunately, his last ball didn't knock over a single one of the bottles forming the bottom row, though he did take down the rest of the ones in the middle.

"Not bad, not bad!" the guy running the booth said cheerfully. "You win one of the medium ones." He added, going to take one of the modest-sized Godzilla plushies off its shelf.

"But I want one of the big ones," Mari said.

The guy in the booth immediately stopped reaching for the medium plushie, his eyes gleaming. He clearly smelled money. "Say the word, and I'll rack 'em up again."

"I don't know…" Shinji said reluctantly. He was really quite pleased with himself to have won a medium prize with one try, and he wasn't too keen on playing again. He was afraid any repeat performances from him might be far less impressive.

"_Please_, Puppy-kun?" Mari implored him, taking one of his arms and encircling it with both of hers, hugging it to herself. "For me?"

He didn't know how she did it. The brunette's pleading expression was just incredibly _cute_ that denying her was practically impossible.

The way Mari currently had his upper arm squashed into her soft chest also wasn't helping his resistance much, no sir.

"I'll try," he finally gave in.

"Thanks, Puppy-kun," she beamed at him, releasing his arm so he could play the game.

Resisting the urge to sigh, Shinji placed some more money down on the counter, for which he received three more baseballs. Taking a deep breath, he aimed carefully and wound up for the pitch.

* * *

Standing next to Shinji as he prepared for his second round of the milk bottle game, Mari did her best not to grin _too_ maniacally. She was having great difficulty with this.

The game was rigged. When the Third Child had tossed his last ball during his first try at the game, one of the bottles on the second row had hit one of the bottom ones on its way down. The impact should have at least made the thing move, if not fall over, but it had never budged.

Of course, Shinji hadn't noticed this; it had happened too quickly for him to take in. However, secretly being the Flash meant that it was very easy for Mari to observe events that only took a second to unfold. It _also_ meant that it had been very easy for her to check (at speeds faster than the eye could see) and confirm that the bottles were so heavily weighted that no one short of a major league pitcher could realistically hope to win the game.

So, now that she had persuaded Shinji to try again, she intended to even the odds a little bit.

The Third Child threw the baseball, and Mari reached out with her powers, _tweaking_ the Speed Force the way she had when she'd helped NERV stop the Eleventh Angel, and temporarily conferred a miniscule portion of her own speed to the ball.

The air crackled around the baseball, as though there had been some static discharge, and thin tongues of electricity briefly twisted around Mari's fingers. Fortunately, both of these things happened so quickly that neither Shinji nor the game operator noticed.

What they _did_ notice was the way the baseball surged forward, like it had been shot out of a cannon. It struck its target with such enormous force that the small pyramid of milk bottles practically exploded, the individual pieces of it flying in all directions. The guy running the game actually hit the deck, afraid of being hit by one.

"What the…?" he sputtered as he got up. "How did you do that?" he demanded of Shinji.

The Third Child, who was currently even more flustered than the guy shouting at him, wasn't really up to answering that question. Fortunately, Mari was quite ready to go to bat.

"What do you mean, 'how did he do it'? Have you _looked_ at this guy? It's a wonder he has any intact shirt sleeves, with those huge biceps of his! Really, I thought guns that big were illegal in Japan!" Mari exclaimed, gesturing to the skinny Third Child. "He's like Schwarzenegger and Conan combined! Why wouldn't he be able to win your game?"

The guy running the game glared at her, to which Mari just responded with a knowing grin.

_Accuse us of cheating. Please, I'm __**begging**__ you,_ she thought at him.

He knew that they had to have cheated _somehow_, of course; it was impossible to win the game otherwise. However, he'd have to reveal that he'd rigged the game in order to prove that. Not exactly a winning proposition for him.

The guy seemed to realize this. Obviously fuming, he grabbed one of the largest plush toys and thrust it out at Shinji, who took it and handed it to Mari.

"Aw, thanks, Puppy-kun!" she said, hugging it to her chest. The thing was almost half her size. "You're the best!" she added, then leaned forward to give him a quick peck on the cheek.

Shinji blushed so deeply and immediately became so flustered that Mari couldn't help but laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, now would you two lovebirds get out of here?" the still disgruntled game keeper grumbled. "You're probably keeping other people away."

The two Evangelion pilots left, just walking through the park for a couple of minutes. Mari hummed happily, hugging her new plushie to herself every few seconds, while Shinji just moved as though in a daze.

Mari was just starting to wonder if they'd done everything worth doing in the park when she spotted a familiar face in the crowd. It wasn't hard; that red mane made her stand out like a sore thumb in the crowd of dark-haired Japanese people. The Second Child was currently in the company of a tall, plain looking young man that Mari judged to be at about college age.

"Hey, Asuka!" the bespectacled pilot called, waving.

The redhead turned to look in their direction, and even from a good distance away, Mari could clearly see the Second Child's gaze dart from her, to the stuffed animal in her arms, to Shinji. Asuka then waved back at them, but Mari could easily feel the force of her glare.

Then the Second Child ushered her curious looking date away, and they melted into the crowd.

"Oh boy," Shinji groaned, finally snapping out of his stupor. "She's not happy."

"Yeah," Mari agreed. "I wonder what's got her panties in a twist?"

"Doesn't matter," the Third Child said. "Whatever it is, it's probably my fault. Even if it's not, she'll want to take out her anger on me later."

"Want me to beat her up?" Mari offered cheerfully, cracking her knuckles. "Asuka's pretty tough, but so am I. I think I can take her."

Shinji chuckled, in surprisingly good spirits. "No, thanks. I don't think it would be a very good idea," he said. "Besides, I'm actually not going to worry about it now. I'll deal with it when it happens."

He sounded rather surprised that he was taking this "live in the moment" attitude.

Mari just grinned and gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder. "I have taught you well, grasshoppah," she proclaimed.

She could tell from the look in his eyes that he didn't get it. "Yeah, I guess," he said. "By the way…thanks. I had a really good time today."

Mari's ever-present grin widened. "Any time, Puppy-kun," she said. "Any time."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** So, the new Rogues and the new Flash have had their first battle, and neither was exactly thrilled at the outcome. Expect round two to come pretty soon. The Flash isn't one to dally, after all.

Not much else to say on this chapter, so thanks to all my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.


	10. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Nine:** The Rogues Return

"So when's lunch going to be ready, _Puppy-kun_?"

From his place at the stove, Shinji turned to Asuka, carefully schooling his features to keep the irritation he was feeling from showing on his face. Ever since the redhead had spotted him and Mari together at that amusement park, she had been unpleasant, though not in the way he had expected. The Third Child had foreseen a great deal of anger and open belligerence from the Second Child, after the glare she'd given him.

"Just a few minutes." He answered.

"Honestly," Asuka said, "I really don't know why you Japanese feel the need to make every meal so elaborate and bothersome. Back in the West we could just have a sandwich and call ourselves fed. Or is it just that you like to cook, Puppy-kun?"

Instead, he was getting this. Shinji didn't think Asuka had referred to him by his name once since that day.

"I happen to enjoy cooking," he answered her, turning back to the stove.

"Honestly, only a truly housebroken male enjoys all these domestic chores so much," Asuka scoffed. "I bet you like cleaning too, Puppy-kun."

"Yes, actually. I find it relaxing," Shinji said, not looking at her.

"Of course you do, Puppy-kun."

He was trying to take Asuka's barbs and her derisive use of Mari's pet name for him with equanimity, viewing it simply as the fee the universe was extracting for the very fun day he'd had with the Fourth Child. The redhead was just in one of her moods, which had only been made worse because she hadn't enjoyed her blind date at all, and if he just stuck it out, she'd go back to normal eventually.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to tolerate, though.

Finishing lunch (which hadn't taken _that_ much more time to prepare than a couple of sandwiches would have), he put the food on the table and the two of them sat down to eat. For a brief moment, blessed silence reigned in the apartment.

"You know, Puppy-kun, I thought that people who enjoyed cooking actually became good at it," Asuka remarked, gesturing with her fork.

Shinji's grip on his own utensils tightened. "Nobody's forcing you to eat my cooking," he pointed out.

"No, but I don't have time to go out and get something else, thanks to that sync test we have later," Asuka countered. "Honestly, do you think I'd be spending a Sunday afternoon at the apartment with you otherwise, Puppy-kun?"

Shinji didn't make a reply to _that_ one, fixing his gaze firmly down on his plate and angrily shoving food into his mouth until he was done with his meal.

Asuka finished at about the same time he did, getting up from the table.

"You don't mind taking care of the dishes, do you, Puppy-kun?" she asked, an insincerely pleasant smile on her face.

Shinji finally snapped. "All right, would you quit calling me that, already?" he demanded.

The redhead's blue eyes widened with mock surprise. "You don't seem to mind it when Makinami calls you that," she pointed out innocently.

"It's _different_ when Mari does it," he hissed.

When Mari called him that, she wasn't trying to get under his skin because she was annoyed with him. It was just Mari being…Mari.

With one quick, almost violent motion, he grabbed both plates on the table and turned toward the sink to start washing. In so doing, he managed to miss the hurt look that briefly appeared on the redhead's face.

Shinji heard Asuka stomping off, probably heading toward her room.

He was aware that so far as tolerating her went, he had pretty much fallen on his face at the finish line; that barb which had set him off had probably been the last one she was going to deliver, at least for the moment, and while it _had_ been rather satisfying to snap back at her, he knew he'd doubtlessly just made things worse.

Still, he didn't try to say anything to Asuka as she stormed off.

* * *

"Come on people, pick up the damn pace already!" Chiron bellowed at the quartet of agents he was personally training.

The four members of Section Two he had selected to be the new Rogues groaned but obeyed. They knew better than to protest after one of them had tried it a few hours ago.

Scowling despite their obedience, the strict chief of NERV's bodyguard and black ops force looked out at the training field where the Rogues were working. Preparing a group to competently do battle with someone like the Flash wasn't easy, and the complications that came with having to do so quietly hadn't made it any simpler. He'd had very limited resources at his disposal, and giving anyone a hint that the Rogues worked for NERV was, of course, completely forbidden.

In the end, he'd had to settle for finding a secluded spot in the Geofront and setting up an array of target dummies. They made poor substitutes for the Flash, so he had to hope that the group's previous encounter with her had prepared them for the incredible speeds that the crimson comet was capable of.

"Remember, fight smarter, not harder!" he barked at the four agents. "I never want to see any of you just standing around while your teammates are engaging her! And for the love of god, fight _with_ each other, not just next to each other!"

All in all, he supposed it was difficult to complain much about their performance. After their initial bumbling and stumbling about (he really had been an idiot to entrust the Rogues' performance to Hirose), they had quickly started to gel as a team. They had even come up with a few new ways to use their weapons in tandem to increase their effectiveness.

Still, he had his worries about the next time they confronted the Flash. Section Two was great for roughing up or even killing anybody who had earned the Commander's wrath. It was decent at playing bodyguard to the Evangelion pilots and other important NERV personnel.

Assassinating a superwoman who could break the sound barrier more quickly than most people could break into a jog? That was a tall order for them, even with the specialized weaponry Ikari had obtained.

Nevertheless, the Commander had given them an order to terminate the Flash. Chiron intended to whip the new Rogues into the most lethal anti-speedster group possible, even if it killed them.

* * *

Shinji Ikari sighed as he walked through the halls of NERV headquarters, having just changed back to his regular clothes following the afternoon's sync test.

He had held out some hope that Asuka would do exceedingly well, and that the redhead's mood would be improved as a result. However, quite the opposite had occurred; not only had the Second Child's score dropped by a few points, but Shinji's had gone up significantly.

The difference was great enough that the Third Child now had the highest synchronization ratio of the four pilots.

Dr. Akagi had not delivered the news very gently, and Asuka hadn't exactly reacted well. The redhead had ranted at length about "the obnoxious perfect baka" and promised that she was "coming for him" which he _hoped_ was simply a pledge to regain the top spot when they took their next sync test.

_She's not going to get anymore pleasant any time soon,_ he thought dourly as he continued trudging back toward the entrance to headquarters.

To top it all off, Misato couldn't take them back to the apartment; she had told them earlier that she'd be able to, but Lieutenant Quinn had apparently made herself scarce. Without her friend's help, Misato was going to be stuck at the base for a while doing paperwork.

_She became very dependant on Jessie very quickly,_ Shinji thought, feeling a bit amused despite how badly his day was turning out so far. Misato usually didn't get overwhelmed by paperwork unless an Angel battle had happened recently, and it had to be one that tore up a great deal of the city, at that.

Normally, Shinji and Asuka would have ridden the bus back to the apartment in a situation like this, but the Second Child doubtlessly didn't want anything to do with him at the moment. Even if she did, Shinji wasn't keen on the thought of being alone with her in a relatively confined space.

So it looked like he would be trekking home alone that afternoon.

"Hey, there, Puppy-kun."

_Almost as if on cue_, he mused.

"Hello, Mari," he greeted the brunette with a small smile.

"Congrats on your win today, Puppy-kun," she said. "You're a natural Evangelion pilot, no doubt about it."

"Thank you. I don't really think of it as a 'win' though," he said. "I mean, the sync tests aren't supposed to be a competition or anything." He added, even though he had several other reasons for not considering it to be a victory of any kind.

"You're always too modest, Puppy-kun," Mari chided him. "When you're awesome at something, you need to embrace your awesomeness. Trust me, I have a lot of experience with that."

Shinji couldn't help but grin at that. "And you're humble, too," he said.

"Yeah," Mari agreed with a smirk, buffing her fingernails against the front of her shirt. "I know."

The Third Child couldn't help but laugh at that.

"So, Jessie's nowhere to be found, probably hiding from Katsuragi's paperwork, which means I have to head back to my place without her," she said. "I was hoping that a big, strong man could walk me home and protect me." She added, batting her lashes coquettishly at him.

Shinji laughed again and nearly quipped that he'd try to find someone like that for her. He certainly wasn't big or strong, and in fact he was quite certain that Mari could easily beat him up if they ever got into a fight for some reason, probably without breaking a sweat. Not only that, but Mari's apartment building was hardly in a bad neighborhood. In broad daylight, the risk of getting mugged or something on the way from headquarters to her place was roughly zero.

Regardless, the Third Child didn't have any reason to say no to her and one very big reason to say yes. He didn't know if Asuka was heading straight home, but if she was, well, he'd rather not be in the apartment with her. Delaying his return by walking Mari home seemed like just what the doctor ordered.

Besides, if he had to spend time with a girl calling him "Puppy-kun" over and over, he'd rather be with the one who didn't do it in a mean-spirited way.

"I'd be happy to walk you home," he said.

"And you didn't even suggest that you weren't qualified for the job. You're learning, Puppy-kun," Mari congratulated him. "Let's go."

She took his arm and linked it with hers, keeping him close. Shinji blushed, not only at the intimate position, but also because she had his arm pressing into the side of her soft breast.

"Mari?" he spoke up as they started to walk.

She turned her head, looking at him with a cheeky smirk on her face. "Yes?"

He knew immediately that she was aware of both what she was doing and the effect it was having on him.

"Never mind."

"Okay," she said cheerfully.

The pair of them headed out of the NERV pyramid, and Mari was forced to release Shinji as they boarded the train that would take them to surface of Tokyo-3. The Third Child was both disappointed and relieved by this (he had been blushing so profusely by the time they'd unlinked arms that he'd started to fear his face might burst into flame).

Once they reached the street, the brunette cheerfully ignored the nearby bus stop and started out down the sidewalk. Shinji didn't protest; he was trying to kill time, after all.

As usual, Mari carried the conversation between them, chatting about any number of subjects as she bounced down the street. However, a few minutes after they'd set out, she turned to him with an inquisitive look.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

Mari didn't answer right away. Instead, she made a "hmm" sound, and then abruptly brought her face uncomfortably close to his own, adjusting her glasses and squinting.

Shinji felt her breath on his face and reflexively flinched back. "What?" he asked.

"Just trying to see what the deal is. You seem even quieter than usual," she explained, then tilted her head. "Though it can be difficult to tell with you, Puppy-kun." She admitted.

He sighed. "Sorry," he said. "I've been having a rough week."

A short metal fence with a railing on top was next to the stretch of sidewalk they were walking down. Mari almost absentmindedly leaped onto it, not wobbling for a second even though the railing was rounded on top.

"What's the problem?" she asked, walking down the length of the railing as easily as Shinji was walking down the side of the street. She never even looked down at her feet, he noted.

"Asuka's been in a…mood," he said, not sure how else to explain it.

Fortunately, the bespectacled pilot was quite well acquainted with the Second Child, too. She seemed to understand immediately.

"The offer to beat her up is still open, you know," she said. Then she raised her arms and performed several slow but perfect flips on the railing.

"I never doubted that," Shinji said with a small, rueful smile. "But somehow I don't think that would solve anything."

"Don't be silly, Puppy-kun! Violence solves everything!" Mari said in a positively bubbly tone. Shinji wasn't quite sure if she was being entirely sarcastic or not.

"All the same, I'd prefer it if you didn't beat her up," he said.

"Suit yourself," Mari said. "It would've been a good fight, though. I would've let you watch." She added offhandedly.

"Wait, what?" Shinji blurted out. For some reason, the way she'd said that made him blush furiously.

"So you like to watch, then?" Mari asked in a breathy voice.

The Third Child's response was a long string of incomprehensible stammering.

The brunette laughed. "You're hilarious, Puppy-kun," she proclaimed. "Don't ever change."

Shinji couldn't have made a reply to that if he'd wanted to. Fortunately, Mari seemed content to give him a few moments to regain his composure. To keep herself amused while she waited, she performed one more flip and remained upside down this time, proceeding down the railing on her hands.

"Hey, are you _sure_ you quit that gymnastics stuff years ago?" Shinji asked as the blush slowly left his face. He was starting to see why Mari rarely wore skirts outside of school.

Mari grinned impishly. "Well, I stopped taking the classes years ago, but I guess I never really gave it up, now that you mention it," she admitted. "But let's go back to talking about your problem there, Puppy-kun. I don't see why Asuka being obnoxious would have you this down."

He shrugged. They had reached the end of the railing by this point, and Shinji came to a halt so as not to leave her behind. "I guess I'm just not looking forward to dealing with her for the next few days," he said. "I kind of thought she'd get over it soon, but after the sync test…"

"Yeah, she was really furious with you after Katsuragi said that you were number one," Mari agreed.

The Fourth Child had started doing one-armed handstand push-ups on the railing by this point, alternating arms with each one. Not for the first time, Shinji marveled at just how strong she was and inwardly shook his head at the thought of _him_ protecting _her_ from anything they might encounter on the trip to her home.

"Honestly, it's just a damn number," he grumbled. "I just don't understand why she gets so pissed off about it."

With one final flip, Mari returned to the ground, landing gracefully on her feet. "Wait, you really don't get it? At all?" she asked, looking genuinely surprised.

"No," Shinji said, shaking his head as the two of them resumed walking down the street. "What's there to get?"

"Puppy-kun!" Mari exclaimed, throwing up her arms. She looked like she was caught between exasperation and amusement. "Asuka started training to pilot EVA at four or five—even _I_ didn't start that young. And believe me, the people at the Third Branch wouldn't have let her slack off even if she wanted to, so she worked pretty much her whole damn life to be ready for this war. Then when it actually happens, you practically pop up out of nowhere, Central sticks you into an EVA, and you turn out to be an awesome pilot who's racked up more kills than Asuka and me put together. Of _course_ it pisses off Asuka. I have to be honest with you, Puppy-kun, it pisses me off sometimes, too."

Shinji blinked, guilt welling up inside of him as the brunette's words sunk in. Thinking about it, he realized that while he had frequently wondered why Asuka acted the way she did toward him, he had never actually bothered to try putting himself in her shoes. Of course his Evangelion-related successes would irritate her; spending years preparing for something and then getting shown up by a complete rookie would annoy anybody.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Oh, don't be silly, Puppy-kun, there's nothing to _apologize_ for," Mari said, clapping him on the back. The force of it sent Shinji staggering forward a couple of steps. "NERV told you to go save the world with their giant robot. You turned out to be really good at it. You didn't set out to tick anybody off. I was just saying that it's not surprising that it annoys the Red Menace."

"Yeah," Shinji agreed. "You take it a lot better than she does, though."

"Hey, you know me. I'm all about temperance and tranquility," Mari said, to which Shinji couldn't help but snicker. "Seriously, though, Red's always been…complicated. You're probably pressing buttons of hers that I can't even guess at."

"Oh, fantastic," Shinji groaned.

"Yeah, I know, it's like a jigsaw puzzle that gives you an electric shock when you try to put the wrong pieces together," Mari said with a grin. "Man, somebody should invent that."

Shinji just smiled ruefully and shook his head, realizing with some surprise that he was feeling better. "Mari?"

"Yes, Puppy-kun?"

"Thanks."

She arched an eyebrow. "What for?"

"Just…"

He trailed off, trying to figure out how to explain the way he'd often simply forget about his troubles when he attempted to wrap his mind around her often bamboozling statements, how he would find himself amused at her antics despite himself, and how when it was over he'd find his mood significantly improved.

"Just…thanks." He finally said.

Mari shrugged. Clearly she didn't understand what he was thanking her for but had decided not to pursue the issue. "You're welcome, Puppy-kun."

* * *

"Empty," Jessie said.

All things considered, the office was really quite nice. The computers were all fairly new models, there were lots potted plants around to make the whole place feel less sterile, and numerous windows allowed ample natural light to stream inside. All in all, it looked like a very pleasant place to work for anyone who wasn't allergic to cubicles.

_It's certainly nicer than some of the places where I've had to push paper,_ Jessie thought, recalling some of the locations that her career in the military had taken her to.

Indeed, the fact that she was the only one there wasn't even _that_ strange, considering that it was a Sunday and all. However, if the place was closed, then the front door should've at least been locked, which it hadn't been. Jessie had been able to walk right into the office like she'd owned it.

"Something seriously weird is going on," she muttered to herself as she started to poke around.

It didn't take Jessie long to discover empty drawers, filing cabinets filled with blank paper, and a bare cupboards in the break room.

_Well, I'll be damned. Kaji was right,_ she thought. _A dummy company for the Marduk Institute._

Just as she was contemplating the potential implications of this disturbing new bit of intelligence, she heard a noise from nearby. Jessie's body tensed, and for a moment she nearly went sprinting toward the exit.

However, her training kicked in immediately after, and she forced herself to assess the situation. The noise had come from the direction of the only exit, so escaping undetected seemed unlikely. Hiding the signs of her nervousness with an effort, Jessie turned her back to the direction of the noise and resumed looking around, though she stopped poking into drawers and cabinets.

It wasn't long before a voice interrupted her.

"Who are you?"

Jessie turned quickly, feigning surprise, and found herself looking at a _very_ large man in a dark suit. If he'd been wearing sunglasses, he could've blended right in with a group of Section Two personnel. Her keen eyes quickly picked out a bulge beneath his coat that she was positive was a pistol.

"I asked you a question," he repeated testily when she didn't immediately answer. "Who are you?"

"My name's Amber, and I'm, like, here to interview for the clerical position," Jessie answered, deliberately allowing her American accent to color her words so greatly that a native Japanese speaker would have to struggle to understand her.

The guy in the black suit was apparently a native speaker of Japanese. "What?" he asked, frowning.

Jessie repeated what she'd just said a bit more slowly so he could understand it. "Am I here on the wrong day? This place looks empty," she added, thrusting her chest out just out just quickly enough that it was obvious she was doing it deliberately.

Silently, the blonde wished, not for the first time, that she was built more like Misato. Her former squad mate could effortlessly pull off the "airhead who's skated through life on good looks" thing at the drop of hat, in thanks no small part due to her impressive endowments.

Of course, Jessie herself had done it a few times while working undercover, but she'd been younger then, she thought nervously.

The man's head tilted to the side. "Are you serious?" he asked.

"Totally," Jessie answered earnestly, even as her foot slowly hooked onto the leg of a nearby chair.

"God, you are, aren't you?" the man asked, looking exasperated. "Not like it matters, I suppose. My employer was very clear on what I'm supposed to do with trespassers."

He reached a hand to get something inside his coat, and Jessie made her move. With a fierce kick, she sent the chair she'd had her foot hooked onto flying toward the man. The maneuver caught him completely by surprise, and the impact from the chair sent him falling to the floor with blood gushing from his nose.

Jessie could have stayed and interrogated the man; she would've had no difficulty incapacitating him. That wasn't her reason for coming to this place, though, and she didn't know if there were any more guards around.

So instead she got while the getting was good, rushing out of the building and then slowing her pace to a walk once she was outside. It didn't take her long to reach the blue car parked in front of the office building.

"So how did it go?" Kaji asked smoothly as she climbed into the passenger seat.

"You knew this place was kept under watch, didn't you?" she growled. "You ass, you swore up and down that it wasn't monitored."

"Most of the places I've been to haven't been," he said as he started driving off, "but, yes, I knew the Committee had someone posted there. I felt it necessary to give you a little test, make sure your skills were still up to snuff."

"Toy with me again like that, and I'll give you a live demonstration of how sharp my combat skills still are," Jessie warned, glaring daggers at him.

"I figured," Kaji said with infuriating nonchalance. "So, what did you find?"

The angry look on the blonde's face cooled to grim thoughtfulness. "Dummy company, just like you said," she answered. "What does it mean? What's the Committee up to?"

"I don't know," Kaji admitted, "but you and me are going to find out."

* * *

As it turned out, however, Ryoji Kaji's plans to chip away at yet another layer of the great facade constructed around NERV and the Marduk Institute would have to wait. The Twelfth Angel appeared the next day, and all the machinations that the various groups of puny humans were running were put on hold by this new, would-be herald of their annihilation.

"Evacuation of the city is complete," Maya reported. "All shelters have sealed their doors."

"Transformation of the city is complete," Aoba added.

The door to the command center opened a second later, and Jessie strode in. "Sorry I'm late," she said, puffing slightly. "I hope I didn't miss anything."

Misato turned her head to look at her friend out of the corner of her eye. "Well, here you are," she commented in a sardonic tone. "I was wondering where you'd been all yesterday."

"Personal matters," Jessie answered succinctly. "Commander Fuyutski signed off on my request for the day off."

A surprised expression flicked over Misato's face for just a fraction of an instant, and Jessie immediately knew the Ops Director had never bothered to check if she'd put in for the day's leave, instead having just assumed she'd found a remote corner of the base to hide in, thereby avoiding work without technically being AWOL.

By the same token, Misato immediately _knew_ that Jessie knew that. Of course, she was aware that the lieutenant was much too professional to point that out on the command center in the middle of a tense combat situation, but the purple-haired woman fully expected her friend to poke fun at her later for it.

Assuming they defeated the Angel and didn't all die, of course.

"Can we bring the Angel up on the main screen?" Misato asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Makoto said.

The bespectacled tech typed in a few commands, and the picture on the largest viewer shifted to display a massive zebra-stripped sphere floating slowly through the city.

"It just appeared out of nowhere less than twenty minutes ago," Misato quietly filled the lieutenant in. "Since then, the Angel's been moving slowly, tranquil as a parade balloon."

"Technically, we're not even sure it _is_ an Angel yet," Makoto put in. "It's giving off an orange waveform pattern rather than a blue one. The MAGI are still chewing over the data, but so far everything's been inconclusive."

Misato and Jessie's eyes met, and just like that, they both knew they were thinking the exact same thing.

What _else_ could the damned thing be?

"What's the status of the Evangelions?" the Ops Director asked.

"Units Zero through Two have reached the surface and are awaiting instructions," Aoba answered. "As per your orders, Unit Five is being held in reserve."

Jessie couldn't help but wince a bit. While she could see the logic of holding back the largest and admittedly clumsiest Evangelion in this situation, she knew Mari wasn't going to be happy about it.

"Open a channel to the deployed Evangelions," Misato ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," Makoto said.

A moment later, the image of the Angel was obscured by a trio of communications windows on the main screen. Shinji, Asuka, and Rei all looked understandably tense.

"Okay, guys, here's the situation," Misato began, "the MAGI haven't been able to tell us anything useful about the Angel—"

"As usual," Asuka grumbled under her breath.

"—so we're going into this one blind," the Ops Director continued, ignoring the Second Child's remark. "I want you to approach the Angel. Get into weapon's range, but _be careful_. Asuka, you have point."

"Oh, but don't you want Shinji to take point?" the redhead asked in a too-innocent tone of voice.

"…what?" Misato asked, the question taking her completely by surprise.

"Well, after all, he's the number one pilot, isn't he? You said so yourself!" Asuka pointed out, still in that butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth voice. "So shouldn't the brave, awesome Third Child take the lead? I think it would be a great idea, unless he's too scared, of course."

And just like that, it became obvious what Asuka was really doing.

"Asuka, if you want to take point, you can."

Mercifully, Shinji didn't take the bait she was dangling before him.

"Oh, no!" the Second Child went on. "The number one pilot should take point. Unless, of course, he's too scared."

Shinji's eyes flashed, but he refused to pick up the gauntlet she had just thrown down. "I'm not scared," he said, "but just because my sync ratio's a little higher than yours, that doesn't automatically mean I'm the better pilot."

"Enough, you two," Misato said sternly, finally regaining her equilibrium after Asuka's seemingly uncharacteristic behavior had thrown her off balance. "You don't get to decide these things. I'm the one in command here. Asuka, take point." Her tone promised dire retribution if there were any more arguments about the matter.

The Second Child knew better than to press the matter further. "Roger," she said. "Unit Two moving into attack position."

"Unit Zero moving to support Unit Two," Rei said.

"Uh, Unit One doing the same," Shinji added.

With that, the three pilots' comm. windows winked out, leaving the image of the Angel on the screen.

"I want to know if the Angel gives even the slightest indication that it's reacting to the presence of the Evangelions," Misato ordered the techs, who quickly acknowledged the command.

"War is long stretches of boredom punctuated by short bursts of chaos," Jessie commented with grim humor, speaking softly enough so that only Misato could hear her. "Even when you're fighting giant monsters out of a bad sci-fi movie."

The corners of the Ops Director's lips twitched at that, and she might've actually smiled, at least for a moment, if it had been true. However, waiting for the Evangelions to get into position to attack and knowing that the Angel could lash out at them at any moment was the polar opposite of boring.

Misato generally didn't think of boredom as a good thing, but in this case, she would've been willing to make an exception.

"All right, everybody's in position," Asuka reported after what felt like an eternity of waiting. "Permission to attack?" she asked, not doing a very good job of masking the eagerness in her voice, if she was even trying at all.

Misato hesitated for a moment. If nothing else, her experience with this war had taught her how quickly things could go spectacularly wrong when fighting the Angels.

Yet there was no reason not to strike, and an officer who didn't have the nerve to order an attack for fear of what might happen had no business being in a position of command.

"Granted," she said.

Unit Two broke from the cover of a skyscraper fired three shots at the Angel from an Evangelion-scale pistol.

And everything instantly went to hell.

The black and white sphere seemed to wink out of existence as the bullets passed through it, but even in those seconds it was missing, its shadow grew darker, becoming so black that it seemed like it was about to suck all the light right out of the bright and sunny afternoon.

"Pattern blue! Angel confirmed!" Makoto exclaimed, just as the sound of the three pilots crying out in fear and surprise mingled with blaring klaxons.

"What's going on?!" Misato barked, shouting so as to be heard over the din.

"It looks like the Angel, the true Angel, is an inverted AT field," Ritsuko said as she gazed over Maya's shoulder at the brunette's screen. "That sphere was just its shadow."

"_What?_" Jessie asked, conveying Misato's own sentiments perfectly. "What the hell does that mean?"

The Ops Director ignored the two blondes, looking at the main screen, which showed the Evangelions. All three of them had sunk into the blackness up to their ankles, as though the city streets had been replaced by a swamp.

"Guys, get out of there!" Misato ordered them.

"We're working on it!" Shinji and Asuka snapped, and for just a moment the Ops Director found herself remembering the synchronization training the two had undergone in preparation for the Seventh Angel.

Fortunately, all three of the Evangelions had been using nearby buildings for cover, so none of them had any difficulty getting close enough to one to scale it. The city's skyscrapers had become islands in the black sea of the bizarre Angel's body, offering the only chance for salvation that the trio of Evangelions had.

That chance was clearly going to be short-lived, however. As Misato watched, several buildings tumbled sideways, falling into an inky darkness which quickly consumed them, denying the Evangelions vital stepping stones.

"Come on, come on," she muttered under her breath, her heart in her throat as she watched the giant war machines play hopscotch across the city skyline as they made their way to safety.

It didn't take Units Zero and One long to make it outside the circumference of the shadowy Angel, the blue and violent giants' feet crashing down upon solid ground. They had been relatively far away from the zebra sphere, ready to flank it after Asuka began her attack.

Unit Two, however, was a different story. The crimson Evangelion had started out at practically the center of the black hole the Angel had transformed itself into, leaving it with a much longer and more perilous trek back to safety.

_You can do this, damn you,_ Misato thought at Asuka, knowing and hating the fact that there was nothing she could do to help the redhead right now.

Mercifully, though, it looked as though the Second Child really _could_ do it; Asuka's years of training showed as Unit Two moved with a level of grace and agility that seemed like it should've be impossible for something so massive, leaping from building to building, never losing its footing even as several city blocks crumpled around it.

The Ops Director was just starting to feel cautiously optimistic when fortune decided to deal the redhead a bad hand. The building Unit Two was jumping toward decided to start tiling to one side and falling at exactly the wrong moment, and the crimson Evangelion landed poorly, its feet slipping off the side of the building.

"No," Misato gasped as she watched Unit Two tumble downwards.

The scarlet EVA grabbed hold of the side of the building somehow, halting its fall, but that only delayed the inevitable, since the building itself was going down. It tumbled down onto its side, partially crumbling, while Unit Two clung onto it for dear life, instantly sinking up to its waist. The production model Evangelion managed to shift position, so it had both of its arms on what was now the top side of the building in a fairly firm grip, but it couldn't seem to get much more than its chest over the side.

"Asuka, move it!" Misato ordered her. "Get out of there!"

"I can't!" the redhead growled back through clenched teeth. "It feels like something's trying to pull me down."

Misato debated for an instant whether to gamble the other two Evangelions in a bid to save Asuka, but before she could give voice to her decision, Unit One plunged back into the danger zone, making use of what few buildings remained to move toward the crimson Eva.

"Shinji, what are you doing?" she demanded.

He ignored her, continuing his frantic trek toward his endangered fellow pilot. He wasn't as graceful as Asuka had been in Unit Two before her luck had gone bad, but what he lacked in practiced skill, he made up for with sheer desperation, moving at least as quickly as she had.

"Asuka, take my hand!" he called as Unit One crashed down onto the skyscraper she was clinging to, the purple war machine's weight causing it to sink another few feet into the shadow.

The crimson EVA immediately grabbed hold of its counterpart's proffered hand, and Shinji started to pull hard. Unit Two began to slowly emerge, but the building they were on started to sink more rapidly than before. If Shinji couldn't liberate Unit Two quickly, they would both be lost to the shadow. No one in the command center even breathed as they waited to see if the two would escape.

Then, just as it seemed as though they were out of time, Unit Two abruptly popped out of the shadow, as though whatever had been trying to pull her down had finally given up. The crimson EVA scrambled to its feet next to Unit One.

"C'mon, let's go!" Asuka exclaimed, clearly eager to be away from the shadow.

The scarlet Evangelion bent its knees and then leaped toward the nearest other building, but in her haste, Asuka managed to clip Unit One as she did, throwing it off balance. Shinji would have been able to recover, but at that very moment, the badly abused skyscraper upon which the purple war machine stood partially crumbled beneath Unit One's feet. The purple and green giant pin-wheeled its arms about desperately in an attempt to regain its balance, but Shinji never really had a chance of success. Unit One fell backwards, and almost instantly it vanished into the darkness, the Angel swallowing it whole.

All this happened before Asuka even realized that she had hit Unit One in her eagerness to get away from the Angel. When she at last discovered what had happened, she hesitated, Unit Two coming to a halt atop a skyscraper that only had about five floors above the surface of the Angel at this point.

"Keep going!" Misato practically snarled at her, and the redhead wordlessly complied, Unit Two going back into motion. "The last thing I need is to lose you both." The Ops Director added in a quiet voice, too soft for anyone but her and Jessie to hear.

* * *

Mari decided that on the scale of days that sucked, this one was shaping up to be a perfect ten.

It had already been about a nine, or at least an 8.5, of course. Any day in which an Angel attacked and she and Unit Five were held in reserve always contained exceedingly high levels of suck. However, Shinji getting lost within the Angel had definitely pushed things from "Hoover" status and straight into "black hole" territory.

Really, the only good thing that had happened so far that day was that the Twelfth Angel had stopped moving after it had been hit, rather than going on to eat the whole city. NERV had quickly thrown up a very makeshift base, mostly tents and trailers, near the border of the Angel. They figured that Shinji had several hours if he switched Unit One to life support only mode, so the eggheads figured they some time in which to regroup and figure out a new way to come at the problem. Unfortunately, they of course wanted all the pilots on hand, which meant all the remaining Children could do was stand around and wait.

Mari _hated_ waiting. She was the kind of person who liked to always be moving, always doing something. Waiting drove her up the wall like nothing else, and she swore that her boredom and anxiety was messing with her powers, causing her to randomly kick into speed mode so that time literally slowed down for her, making the whole ordeal even worse.

Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be much else she could do at the moment. She had already slipped away to call (and wake up) Denise, asking her if Barry Allen had ever confronted a situation remotely like this, and if so, how the previous scarlet speedster had resolved it. However, so far as her friend knew, neither he nor Jay Garrick had ever had to deal with a living abyss appearing in the center of a major city. If there was some way Mari could use her powers to liberate Shinji, Denise couldn't see it.

As if all _that_ wasn't enough, Katsuragi wanted all the pilots ready to get back onboard their Evangelions at a moment's notice, in case the Angel started moving again. That meant Mari was forced to remain in her green and white plug suit, which was getting so damn _tight_ in the chest that she couldn't even take a deep breath in it anymore.

All in all, it definitely added up to a day that was in danger of completely breaking the Official Makinami Scale of Suck and clocking in at a solid eleven.

_Damn it,_ Mari thought as she paced around the impromptu base in agitation. _I really wish I could kill something right now. Or at least hit it really, really hard._

"Well, of _course_ it's the baka's own fault that he's in this mess." A familiar voice came from nearby.

Mari would've grinned if she wasn't so pissed off. As it was, she stalked over toward Asuka.

The redhead was standing a few dozen yards off, out of the way of the NERV scientists and techs who were bustling around. She had her hands on her hips and looked like she intended to give a speech to anyone who would listen. Her audience pretty much consisted of Rei, and even the First Child didn't seem to be paying her much attention.

"Really, acting without orders like that was just plain reckless," Asuka continued. "Anybody else would be flayed alive for that kind of behavior, but not the great and wonderful Shinji, oh no!"

Asuka's back was to Mari, and there was too much noise at the makeshift base for the Second Child to hear the brunette's footsteps. Rei must've seen the bespectacled pilot coming, but she gave no sign of it. She certainly didn't give Asuka a heads up.

"What he did was just plain stupid," the redhead went on, "and he has no one but himself to blame for—"

"Asuka," Mari said, now right behind the other pilot.

The Second Child tensed, then whirled about. Finding herself abruptly nose to nose with the Fourth Child, she quickly jerked back a step, recovering her composure a second later.

"What do you want, Mari?" Asuka demanded, clearly annoyed at having her tirade interrupted in such a rude fashion.

"I want you to shut the hell up," Mari answered immediately.

The redhead's scowl deepened. "Excuse me?"

"Shinji saved you from getting pulled into that Angel, at the cost of getting sucked in himself," the brunette said, glaring daggers at Asuka. "If you can't come up with a little gratitude, the least you can do is shut your mouth instead of talking trash about him."

"And what are you gonna do if I don't stop?" Asuka challenged her.

"Oh, that's simple," Mari said, cracking her knuckles. "If you don't shut up, I'm going to kick your skinny ass."

The redhead's hands balled into fists. "I'm not afraid of you," she hissed.

"I never said you were," Mari replied, and indeed, she didn't doubt that Asuka was telling the truth there. Like she'd told Shinji, the Second Child was tough; she had been raised to be a soldier from a very young age, after all.

Of course, if Mari used her speed powers, she could've left Asuka black and blue all over before the Second Child could even blink, but Mari didn't intend to utilize her extraordinary abilities. It would never be said that Mari Illustrious Makinami didn't give a fellow Evangelion pilot a fair fight.

Which didn't mean she wasn't planning to seriously lay the smack down on Asuka, of course, because she totally _was_.

"I really don't care whether you're afraid of me or not," Mari continued. "So, one more time, are you gonna shut up, or are we going to get physical?"

"I'm not keeping quiet just because you tell me to," Asuka growled, a militant gleam in her pale blue eyes.

"Have it your way," Mari said.

She swung, but before her fist could get close to Asuka's face, a hand grabbed her shoulder in a powerful grip and shoved her backwards. Mari went staggering, eventually regaining her balance.

"Okay, break it up, you two!" Jessie barked at them, having pushed the two girls apart.

"She was about to punch me!" Asuka exclaimed.

"I saw," Jessie growled, turning to Mari. "Come with me."

The blonde put a hand on the Fourth Child's shoulder, grabbing her like a vice, then marched Mari behind one of the trailers NERV was using, so nobody else at the makeshift base would be able to see them.

"What were you thinking?" Jessie hissed at her.

"She was badmouthing Shinji!" Mari exclaimed. "The guy saves her from falling into that pit, and she repays him by saying all this nasty stuff about him when he's not here to defend himself! I couldn't let that pass! If she'd just agree to keep quiet, I wouldn't have tried to hit her!"

"You can't just hit your fellow pilots," Jessie said firmly.

"But—!"

"No buts!" Jessie insisted. "We give you pilots a lot of leeway, because we know for all the talk about professionalism, you're all still 14. But trying to attack another pilot is over the line. I'm going to have to punish you for this later."

Mari wanted to protest, to point out that Asuka had clearly committed the bigger injustice here, but she knew better than to fight with Jessie at a time like this. Scowling darkly, she nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Jessie's brown eyes softened. "I know it sucks, I know you're worried about Shinji, and I know hearing Asuka say those things made you furious," she said. "But did you ever stop to consider _why_ she's saying that crap?"

"I don't care why," Mari said bluntly.

"She feels guilty," Jessie said. "She's trying to convince everybody, including herself, that what happened to Shinji isn't her fault."

"That doesn't make it right," Mari pointed out.

"No, it doesn't," Jessie conceded, "but it does make you less pissed off about it, doesn't it?"

The brunette reluctantly had to admit that it did; her anger at Asuka was ebbing away, leaving her with only anxiety and jittery, nervous energy she had no outlet for.

"Buck up," Jessie said, patting her on the back. "Hopefully we'll get Shinji and Unit One back in a couple of hours. I think things will go back to normal around here once he's safe and sound."

"Have the eggheads come up with a plan, yet?" Mari asked hopefully.

"No," Jessie admitted, "but they'd better hurry. Unit One's internal battery won't last much longer."

"Great," Mari groaned.

"Relax, kid," Jessie said. "The finest minds in all of NERV and the biggest computer in the world are working on it."

* * *

As it turned out, the best solution that the finest minds in all of NERV and the biggest calculator in the world could come up with within the amount of time they had was, in Mari's opinion, totally lame brained.

The plan, if it could really be called that, was to chuck every N2 weapon in the JSSDF arsenal—nearly 1000 warheads—into the Angel and hope that the resulting boom was big enough to rupture the thing.

Normally, Mari heartily approved of any plan that involved truly excessive amounts of guns or explosives, but not when they were going to drop the payload right on top of her friend's EVA.

Dr. Akagi swore up and down that Unit One would probably survive the explosion, but she had made a point about not mentioning what would happen to the pilot.

Mari dearly wanted to protest against the incredibly stupid plan, but they were out of time. Unit One's internal battery would run out in minutes, and then Shinji was dead no matter what they did.

So when Katsuragi ordered the pilots to their Evangelions, Mari reluctantly went and climbed into Unit Four.

Nobody knew exactly what would happen when all the N2 bombs went off, but a _really_ big explosion was hardly outside the realm of possibility. To prevent the city from getting toasted if that happened, Katsuragi wanted the Evangelions to surround the Angel and deploy their AT fields.

Mari had already moved Unit Five as close to the edge of the abyss as she could get (while doing her best to avoid destroying any buildings. Honestly, Katsuragi was _way_ too worried about property damage. All the construction probably stimulated the local economy or something, anyway). So all she had to do now was climb in and wait for the signal.

"Unit Five standing by," she reported as she synced up with her EVA and put on her helmet.

"The bomber should drop their payloads in just over two minutes," Misato told all the pilots. "Deploy your fields now."

_We're going to nuke Puppy-kun,_ Mari thought as she willed the invisible barrier into being. Unit Five's AT field joined with the ones emitted by Units Zero and Two to create a massive triangle around the Angel. _This is __**so**__ wrong._

She had just started to hear the roar of the bombers' engines when the ground started to shake beneath Unit Five's wheels.

Chatter filled the comm. channels reserved by NERV as everyone tried to figure out what was going on, but Mari ignored them all, staring out at the abyss.

The shadow, the true Angel, started to crack in several places, ruby liquid bursting from the fissures. The sphere above the Angel became completely black, and a crack formed along the side. A single red hand burst out, dripping with blood so dark it was nearly brown.

The buzz of frantic conversation on the radio instantly fell silent as Unit One clawed its way out of the Angel. As it fought its way back into the world of light and air, part of its helmet shattered, allowing the mighty Evangelion to open its jaw and release a fearsome roar that seemed to make the whole world tremble. The streets below it were showered in blood as it emerged.

For a long moment, most of the NERV personnel present could only stare at the blood drenched form of Unit One in shock and horror.

"Mein Gott in Himmel," Asuka breathed from her place inside Unit Two's entry plug, "am I piloting a monster like that?"

On the ground, Dr. Akagi had turned pale. "What in God's name have we created?" she wondered aloud.

Seated in the cockpit of her Provisional Evangelion, Mari smiled.

"Well, what do you know?" she said to herself. The grisly image was reflected on her glasses, making them look like they were covered in blood. "You really do understand EVA's true nature, don't you, Puppy-kun? I didn't think you did, but you do. You really, really do."

* * *

Of course, if someone were to ask Shinji if he knew, if he truly comprehended and understood the bestial nature of his Evangelion, he would have laughed at them. Or at least that's what he would have done under normal circumstances.

On his first day back from school after the incident with the Twelfth Angel, he probably would've screamed if someone had posed that question to him.

He had seen things while trapped inside the Angel. Confusing, profoundly disturbing things. However, even the things he'd witnessed didn't haunt him like the memory of being imprisoned within his coffin-like entry plug, feeling like he'd been buried alive and waiting for the oxygen to run out.

Shinji was having nightmares about the experience nearly every time he went to sleep, and even when he was awake, he felt cold and clammy, like he was still stuck in his entry plug, the LCL gradually growing chilly around him as the life support systems ran out of power.

He was so lost in his grim thoughts (not to mention so tired from repeated nights of poor sleep), that he didn't immediately notice when the dismissal bell rang. Shinji was the last one to rise from his seat.

Once he was on his feet, he looked around, feeling groggy and clueless about what to do next. The whole of the afternoon was stretched out before him, and he didn't know how to spend it.

He didn't want to just go back to the apartment. Misato wouldn't be there, and he was fairly sure Asuka planned to spend time with Hikari that afternoon. He would be alone at home, and while he usually enjoyed his own company, being by himself was the last thing he wanted at the moment.

Toji and Kensuke had seemingly bolted the second school let out. Looking around, Shinji couldn't see his two friends anywhere in the classroom.

Rei had been called into NERV for…something, so even visiting her was out.

Of course, though he was a little reluctant to admit it to himself for some reason, what he _really_ wanted to do was spend some time with Mari. The quirky brunette had pulled him out a funk more than once, and he really could've used that right then.

Unfortunately, Jessie had grounded her for two weeks. Shinji wasn't exactly sure why, though he knew it apparently had something to do with some sort of…altercation between Mari and Asuka. Shinji didn't resent the lieutenant for it—he got the feeling that if Jessie hadn't punished her, someone else would have, and that person would have been significantly harsher—but he really wished Mari didn't need to head straight home after school and was permitted no visitors.

Finally letting out a sigh, Shinji trudged outside the school building, reluctantly coming to the conclusion that there was nothing for him to do _but_ go home.

He was just about to head out when he thought he heard Toji's voice. The Third Child looked around, surprised, then he seemed to hear Kensuke, too.

The words were too soft for him to make out, but he was able to note that they were coming from a nearby isolated spot outside the school building. His curiosity piqued, Shinji walked over, wondering what his friends were doing.

He realized that they had started up their photo business again before he made it within ten steps of the other two boys. They had several Polaroid pictures on the ground in front of them, and a few other guys were there, in the process of making a purchase.

Shinji frowned at that; he knew that demand for photos of Asuka had dried up, if only because everybody who wanted one already had one, so how had they managed to draw in customers again?

As he approached his friends' impromptu stand their two customers walked off, each cramming an envelope into their pockets before walking back out into the sunshine.

"Oh, hi, Shinji," Kensuke greeted him, not looking away from counting his money.

"Hey, Shin-man," Toji said.

"Hi, guys," he replied as he walked up. "So what are—oh my god!" he exclaimed as he finally took a look at the sample photographs.

They were all of Mari, which by itself didn't surprise him; he'd pretty much foreseen them trying and cash in on the newest of the female Evangelion pilots. However, he'd expected their photos of the Fourth Child to be very much like their photos of the Second. Which was to say, surreptitiously snapped pictures of her around school, mostly innocuous with a few (slightly blurry) ones of Mari in the locker room which revealed nothing.

Instead, all the photos featured Mari in a minimal bikini that looked like it was struggling to restrain her curves. For several seconds, Shinji stared at one showing the brunette with her arms behind her head, her chest thrust out, and her lips pursed as though ready to plant a kiss on someone.

The Third Child abruptly looked away, like he was afraid that Mari could see him leering at her through the Polaroid.

"Not bad, huh?" Kensuke chuckled, seeing the fierce blush on Shinji's face. "I'm a pretty good photographer, wouldn't you say?"

Toji rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you took pictures of a total babe wearing a bikini and managed to make her look hot. What's your secret? Some kind of special film?" he asked sarcastically.

"Don't listen to him, Shinji," the otaku said dismissively. "Proper lighting and camera settings are everything."

The Third Child barely heard his two friends bickering; his brain was still too busy trying to process what they were doing.

"Guys," he finally said, "you really have to stop this. Right now."

Toji and Kensuke traded confused looks.

"Why?" the otaku asked.

Shinji couldn't believe he had to explain it. "It's not right to sell pictures of Mari like this," he said. "What happens if she finds out?"

"Finds out?" Toji echoed, laughing. "Dude, the bikini shots were _her_ idea!"

"What?" Shinji asked, blinking.

"It's true, Shinji," Kensuke said. "Mari's totally in on this. In fact, she's making more money off of it than the two of us put together."

"…really?" Shinji asked slowly.

"Of course," Kensuke said. "How else could I have gotten these pictures? You think Mari just throws on a bikini and starts posing randomly, and I just happened to be there with my camera?"

That bit of logic completely took the wind out of the Third Child's sails. He actually hadn't considered the question of how his friends might've gotten those pictures without Mari's cooperation. The idea that she'd go along with such a photo shoot, let alone be the one to propose it, had just seemed so impossible that it had never entered his mind.

"Oh. Okay, then," he said lamely. "Never mind, sorry." He started to walk away, eager to put this embarrassing incident behind him.

"Shinji, wait a sec," Kensuke said.

"Yeah?" he said, stopping and turning back. He hoped they didn't make fun of him _too_ much over this.

The otaku grabbed a wallet-sized picture. "Here, man, on the house," he said, handing it to Shinji.

"Uh, I don't really…" the Third Child stammered.

"Take it, Puppy-kun," Toji said. There was a smirk on his face, butin spite of that the jock's voice somehow made it clear he would tolerate no argument.

"Um, right," Shinji said. "I have to go. I'll see you guys later."

He walked off until he was out of sight of his friends, then walked over to a nearby trash can. He really _should_ throw the photo way, he knew. Unlike Asuka, Mari wasn't fixated upon finding and punishing any perverts who displayed their proclivities in her presence. However, he still wasn't keen on taking the chance that she would discover he was toting around a photo of her in a bikini, regardless of whether or not she'd happily modeled for it.

Shinji moved to toss the picture away, then stopped for a moment, deciding he might as well at least _look_ at it.

"Wow," he said softly, his face heating.

He had always known that Mari was…gifted. That was obvious to anyone with working eyes. However, he hadn't quite realized just _how_ gifted. Her plug suit was too small for her and actually stifled her endowments, and her old school uniform (the class rep still hadn't managed to get Mari to switch to the same one the other female students of Tokyo-3 Municipal Junior High wore) apparently didn't show them off as much as he'd thought.

Shinji glanced around, making sure no one was looking at him. Then he took out his wallet and slipped the photograph inside.

He didn't realize that he wasn't feeling cold anymore until several hours later.

* * *

The Flash couldn't help but feel just a _little_ bit guilty as she raced through the streets of Tokyo-3. After all, she was supposed to be grounded, and despite not being able to muster any regret over trying to pop Asuka one, she usually tried to respect her guardian's orders.

However, being cooped up inside her apartment was just unbearable to her, and her resolve to be a good girl and just take her punishment had dissolved in less than an hour.

Jessie had apparently foreseen that happening, because she had had Section Two post a double guard around the apartment building, since she herself was stuck at NERV, helping Misato overcome the mountain of paperwork generated by the last battle.

The goons in black might even have prevented her from sneaking out, too, if not for her superpowers. As it was, they never even had a clue.

"It doesn't matter, now what happens, I will never give up the fight!" she sang as she zipped through downtown Tokyo-3, looking for something to do with her ill gotten free time. "So long as the voice inside tells me to run and fight, it doesn't matter who is wrong and who is right!"

The police scanner embedded in one of her costume's wing fins crackled to life just before she could start belting out the next verse, and the scarlet speedster instantly fell silent to listen to it.

**"Calling all cars, calling all cars,"** the dispatcher said. **"Report to Oogata Street immediately. Four perpetrators armed with exotic weaponry are destroying property. Be advised, suspects are to be considered **_**extremely **_**dangerous."**

"Oh man, _that_ sure sounds familiar," the Flash commented to herself, delighted with this new development. "Oogata Street, here I come!"

The Fastest Girl Alive put on an extra burst of speed, making it across the city in an eye blink and coming to a halt at the scene of the unfolding crime. As she'd expected, all four of the Rogues were present.

The area looked very much like the quartet's last playground, she noted. The ruined buildings outnumbered the intact ones, there were destroyed cars everywhere, and almost everything was either on fire or encased in a block of ice.

The scarlet speedster put her hands on her hips and smirked. "You know, boys, it's very flattering that you're all willing to create so havoc and destruction just to see little old me," she said to them in a faux sultry tone. "But we really _have_ to stop meeting like this. You four are all just _way_ too evil, stupid, and smelly for a hottie like me."

She was expecting some kind of response from the Rogues, seeing as how they'd all been willing enough to chat during their last fight. However, none of them spoke. Instead, Captain Cold raised his gun and fired, not at her, but at the street behind her. In seconds, a massive wall of ice appeared, blocking off the intersection behind the Flash. The Rogue repeated the process in the other direction, sealing off a section of the street a block long.

"I really hope you don't think that'll trap me here," the Flash remarked.

"It's not to keep you in," Captain Cold replied. "It's to keep the cops from showing up before we can kill you."

He fired again, this time at the asphalt near the speedster's feet, covering the street in a thin and very slippery layer of ice. Then all four of the Rogues raised their weapons, clearly intending to attack her all at once, unlike the last time they'd fought with her.

"Oh, you guys have been practicing," the Flash commented.

The Rogues fired, and suddenly a burst of intense flame, chilling cold, and high powered laser fire went streaking through the air toward her. All around the scarlet speedster, small but powerful twisters sprang up out of nowhere.

The Flash took off, tweaking the Speed Force and increasing the amount of friction generated by her footfalls by just a tiny bit. The soles of her golden boots heated up, and the ice below her feet melted instantly as they made contact, preventing her from slipping and falling. She deftly weaved between the attacks heading toward her.

"Too bad for you guys, I have, too!" she laughed, making a mental note to thank Denise again for all the prime info on the Rogues and how to counter their standard tactics.

Still keeping her speed cranked, the crimson comet raced around the twisters that Weather Wizard had spawned, unraveling them just like she had practiced in the past.

She left one of the twisters intact, however, instead carefully guiding its path. She turned down her speed just a notch so that the Rogues could observe what she was doing.

For just a moment, they were too bewildered to react.

Then Heatwave unleashed a short blast of fire at her.

_Perfect,_ the Flash thought, coming to an abrupt halt. The flames missed her completely, instead getting sucked in by the remaining twister.

And the scarlet speedster took off once more, directing the now fiery cyclone toward Heatwave. The firebug had no choice but to run for his life.

_BOOM!_

Thunder rumbled as lightning arced from an ominous storm cloud above them, which hadn't been there two minutes ago. The Flash dodged it, but Weather Wizard followed up with several more. Mirror Master and Captain Cold pitched in to make things more difficult. The former unleashed a rapid fire barrage at her from his laser pistol, while Cold, who'd apparently realized that his trick of putting down a layer of ice wasn't working, used his gun to make chunks of ice form by her feet, hoping to trip her up.

"Man, maybe I should take up gymnastics classes again," she commented as she nimbly hopped, flipped, and cart wheeled her way through the attacks and obstacles. "This is a total blast!"

"Shut the hell up, you crazy bitch!" Weather Wizard barked, clearly growing frustrated.

"Oh, now _that_ was just rude!" the Flash said.

The crimson comet surged toward him, firing a punch at his gut. The Rogue instantly doubled over, his mouth open to emit a scream, but no sound came out. Then he slowly collapsed to the street, writhing in pain.

Not really surprising, considering that she'd been doing about 200 mph when she'd hit him.

"Enough of this," Mirror Master growled, slapping at a button on his wrist.

There was a brilliant flash of light, and when it had passed, about fifty copies of Mirror Master had joined the one.

"Oh come on, you did this last time," the Flash chided. "How about a little new material?"

Mirror Master's response was to fire his weapon at her. The Flash was forced to dodge all the laser beams, because she had no way of telling which was the real one.

"Yeah, this trick was a pain in the ass the first time, too," she grumbled, dashing behind a ruined car for some cover.

There was a large chunk of ice from one of Cold's earlier attacks there, and the Flash grinned wickedly as an idea came to her. Her arms blurred as she unleashed a flurry of punches onto the ice, rapidly breaking it into tiny pieces. Within seconds, she had a pile of what looked a lot like snow, which she quickly rolled into dozens of approximately fist-sized spheres.

"_Snowball fight!_" she screamed as she broke from cover and started launching her chilly missiles at the numerous copies of Mirror Master. Every one she hit winked out of existence the moment a snowball hit it.

"Never got to do this before," she remarked, not letting up in her barrage for a second. "It was always too warm where I lived for it to snow. I gotta say, it's even more fun than I imagined!"

One of the snowballs hit one of the Mirror Masters with a wet _plop_ a second later.

"_There_ you are!" the Flash with satisfaction.

She ran toward her target, leaping into the air when she was halfway through and screaming a loud battle cry as she unleashed a ferocious spin kick. Her booted foot struck Mirror Master solidly in the side of the head, and he crumpled to the street.

"Looks like it's just you and me, Snowy," she said, turning to Captain Cold.

"Look again," Heatwave said, stepping forward. Apparently, that last twister had spun itself out before it got him. "Cold."

He raised his weapon, pointing it at the only other Rogue still standing, and for a moment, the Flash thought that Heatwave was turning on Captain Cold. However, the man in the white and blue parka didn't seem the least bit surprised.

"Right," he nodded in agreement, raising his own weapon and pointing it at the firebug.

The Flash quirked an eyebrow, confused. "What the heck are you guys—?"

Captain Cold and Heatwave both fired their weapons. Blazing heat met absolute zero in midair, and the result was predictable.

"Oh, so not cool!" the Flash exclaimed as a massive plume of steam erupted from the point of contact, quickly washing over her.

Reacting quickly, raised both her arms and spun them as quickly as she could. The steam was blown away almost instantly, but her vision didn't improve. For a moment, the scarlet speedster started to panic, not sure why she couldn't see and knowing that her enemies would attack at any second.

Then she realized the lenses on her cowl were fogged up, and she reached up, wiping off the condensation with a hand.

The first thing she saw was a great blast of fire coming straight toward her.

Suppressing a cry of fright, the Flash instantly darted to the left…and ran straight into a beam from Captain Cold's gun.

Faster than even she could react to, layer upon layer of ice formed over her body as arctic cold seemed to pierce her very bones. The crimson comet was brought to complete halt in mid stride, completely encased in a block of ice.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Try as I might, I couldn't come up with a way for Mari and her bulky EVA to have any real part in fighting the Twelfth Angel. The next couple of Angels will be a very different story, though, I promise you that.

I was originally planning to end this chapter with the image of Mari smiling as she gazed at the blood-covered Unit One, but I kept going so she would at least get to be the Flash and do something for a bit in this chapter. Also so I could leave you all with a terrible, terrible cliffhanger, as usual. Come back next chapter to see if the Flash can escape this one!

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

* * *

Omake!

Unfair Fight

"I really don't care whether you're afraid of me or not," Mari continued. "So, one more time, are you gonna shut up, or are we going to get physical?"

"I'm not keeping quiet just because you tell me to," Asuka growled, a militant gleam in her pale blue eyes.

"Have it your way," Mari said.

The next thing Asuka knew, her world was a blur. Before she could even really register what was happening, it stopped, and she found herself nowhere near the makeshift NERV base.

Instead, she was strung up high on a flagpole, which was itself atop one of Tokyo-3's tallest skyscrapers, by her underwear.

Or at least, by _someone's_ underwear, because she certainly did not recognize the pair of Hello Kitty print panties that had somehow been placed over her plugsuit, seemingly for the sole purpose of, well, attaching her to flagpole.

_"What the hell just happened?!"_ she shrieked out to no one in particular.

"Oh, hey, Red. Did you piss off Makinami, too?" a voice unexpectedly answered her.

Surprised, Asuka looked down, seeing that Toji and Kensuke were both tied to the flagpole near the base. She had kind of been wondering where they'd gone to these past few weeks.

"What the hell? You're here, too?" she exclaimed.

"Yeah," Toji answered. "All thanks to the idiot next to me. He suggested a nude photo shoot with Makinami, and the next thing we know, here we are. So what did you do to make her mad?"

Asuka ignored him, heaving a gusty sigh. "I am going to be stuck up here for the rest of my life." She grumbled to herself. "I just know it."


	11. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Ten:** Their Own Worst Enemies

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Captain Cold asked aloud, grinning as he approached the huge chunk of ice that imprisoned the Flash.

"A stupid little speedster bitch, stopped cold," Mirror Master answered.

"What do you think we should do with her, boys?" Weather Wizard asked. "Perhaps a little lightning?" he suggested, flourishing his wand.

"If I really cranked up this gun, I'll bet I could melt the ice so quickly I'd flash steam her ass," Heat Wave said, then chuckled. "Heh, flash steaming the Flash."

All four men were grinning wickedly, malice shining in their eyes. The Flash had made fools of them in their first battle, and in so doing had brought the wrath of Captain Chiron down upon them. In their second encounter, she had continued to act like doing battle with them was a fun diversion, rather than a serious fight, which had only added insult to injury.

So they were in no great rush to deliver the killing blow; thick walls of ice separated the street they were on from the rest of Tokyo-3, barring the police from easily getting them. Mirror Master could conjure them up a quick escape if the T3PD brought in air support, so they could afford to spend a few minutes deciding upon the most sadistic way to end their enemy's life.

"I think," Captain Cold said, "that we all want the kill. Since we all helped make this happen, we should just all blast her at once."

"Yeah? Well, _I_ think that killin' the Flash is a damn stupid idea," a gravelly voice spoke in English from behind the quartet of men. "Don't you idiots know that murderin' a speedster's against the rules?"

Surprised, the Rogues turned around to confront the speaker and found themselves face to face with…the Rogues.

Another four men, dressed in costumes similar to the one Hirose and his anti-Flash taskforce wore stood there, armed with weapons that were nearly identical to their own. They were much older than the group of Section Two agents, however, all of them appearing to be roughly in their seventies, and they were all clearly of Western descent.

"Rules?" the younger Captain Cold echoed, in his own heavily accented English. He was familiar with the language, but he wasn't exactly fluent.

"Yeah, the rules," his counterpart scowled. "You don't kill. Especially not cops, and _especially_ not the speedster. People love 'em. Things get hot if you hit 'em. When Allen disappeared, it was damned ugly. Cops were never more determined to put us away, and they were shootin' to kill. And we didn't have anything to do with Allen's death, even."

Hirose, the younger Captain Cold, looked incredulously at the elder, unable to believe that this group of fossils had appeared from out of the past to harass him and his men.

"We do not care about your rules," he said. "We do not have to worry about police."

He doubted that Commander Ikari would keep their little taskforce around once the Flash was dead, so they could blend back into Section Two and never be held accountable for anything they'd done as the Rogues. Even if Ikari kept them around, NERV controlled the city. So long as they didn't fail the Commander, they'd never see the inside of a jail cell for anything they'd done under his orders, regardless of whether or not it was legal.

The older Captain Cold wasn't impressed. "You might not care, but we do," he said. "Girl's only been to Keystone and Central once, but they already love her there. When _you_ idiots showed up, people assumed we gave you our weapons. Cops have been searchin' for us for the first time in decades. If you idiots kill her, things'll get bad for us real quick. We don't want that, and we don't appreciate people stealing our names and gear."

"I do not care," the younger Captain Cold said bluntly.

Before the older man could reply, he raised his cold gun and fired, sending a blast of absolute zero straight toward the group of old geezers who'd dared to interrupt their mission.

The older Weather Wizard reacted immediately. With the barest flick of his wrist, her conjured an intense gust of wind that sent the super cold particles flying back toward the newer Rogues. The quartet of men were forced to scatter, barely managing to avoid getting frozen solid, instead leaving the Flash's icy prison to get coated in another layer of winter.

Before they could really regroup, the older Mirror Master pressed a button on his gauntlet, and suddenly his younger counterpart was surrounded by nearly two dozen copies of the older man.

"Is this supposed to frighten me?" the junior Mirror Master asked, looking distinctly unimpressed. "I know how this trick works; they're all just holograms. And even if they weren't, you're so damned old that—"

His speech was cut short as one of the duplicates punched him in the face, sending him staggering.

"Hard light constructs," the elder Mirror Master boasted, his words colored by his Scottish burr. "Yer using old tech there, mate."

The younger Mirror Master tried to snap back, tried to unleash his own abilities at his counterpart, but it was no use. The holograms were dog piling him, blows coming from every direction as they grabbed his prism pistol and shattered it, then ripped off the parts of his costume with the gadgetry he needed to be Mirror Master inside of it, likewise breaking them into junk.

"Get offa him!" the younger Heat Wave cried, unleashing a blast of fire at the crowd of holograms.

"I don't think so, boy," the older Weather Wizard said imperiously, another gust of wind sending the flames right back at him. Heat Wave's costume was heavily insulated, but he still felt like he was roasting alive as his own attack washed over him.

"All right, enough of that!" the younger Weather Wizard said, waving his wand and unleashing a blast of hailstones the size of golf balls.

His older counterpart gestured almost casually with his own weather wand, and a small but powerful tornado sprang up between the two of them, catching hold of the hail stones.

"You have no real concept of how powerful Nature's wrath can truly be, do you?" the older master of weather asked, every syllable dripping with an aristocratic type of arrogance. "Allow me to educate you."

With a flick of the glowing baton in his hand, he sent the tornado spiraling straight toward the younger Weather Wizard.

The other man didn't even bother attempting to wrest control of the twister away from his counterpart. Instead, he panicked and ran, but the swirling winds were much too fast for him, and within seconds he was caught in the middle of the storm. He screamed as the hailstones slammed into him at high speed, feeling like he was trapped in a washing machine along with a bunch of rocks. Eventually he collapsed and dropped his own weather wand to the ground.

The elder Heat Wave, who'd been advancing on his own counterpart, almost absently stomped on it as he walked by. The glowing rod shattered beneath his boot, tongues of electricity briefly arcing out from the broken pieces before they became dull and lifeless.

"Why the hell isn't this hurting you?!" the younger fire bug yelled, caught between terror and fury as he fired several blasts of flame at the older man, all to utterly no effect.

"This suit's well insulated," the older Heat Wave said, gesturing to his white garb. "I need it to be. I have to stand right in the middle of the inferno if I want to really appreciate the beautiful glow."

"Man, you're insane!"

"Yeah, I guess I am," the older Heat Wave said as he raised his weapon. "But I'd still rather be me than you right now."

He pulled the trigger on his flame thrower, instantly unleashing a hellish blaze upon his counterpart. The younger Heat Wave retaliated with his own fiery assault, but it had no more of an effect than his earlier attacks had. Also, while his own suit was holding up surprisingly well, it wasn't as well insulated as the other man's costume. The temperature inside it was quickly reaching unbearable levels. He tried to get out of the path of the fire, but he was starting to feel woozy and nauseous. He could only seem to stumble a few steps at a time, and his foe had no difficulty keeping his weapon trained on him.

Then the younger Heat Wave's gun finally melted, turning to liquid right in his grip. The fuel the weapon used to generate flames instantly caught fire, and the flames traveled straight up the hose that had been attached to the gun, almost instantly reaching the pack it was attached to, which Heat Wave wore on his back.

_**Boom!**_

The younger Heat Wave's pack had been less than a quarter full of the fuel it carried, and when it exploded, it exploded outwards. He would've died instantly otherwise. As it was, he ended up face down on the ground, barely conscious and groaning pathetically.

Meanwhile, the two Captain Colds had been exchanging blasts of absolute zero, each managing to avoid being flash frozen only by being quick and agile. Hirose was amazed at how nimble his foe was; he looked like his bones should've practically been dust, but he moved like a man less than half his age.

After one particularly close call, Hirose ducked behind an old car. A blast from the older man's cold gun instantly encased the vehicle in ice, but the wintry death didn't spread out and consume the younger Captain Cold. After allowing himself a brief moment to catch his breath, Hirose dared to peek out from behind cover.

Only to blink when he discovered that his counterpart was nowhere to be found.

_Where…?_

A shadow fell over him. Swallowing, Hirose looked up.

The older Captain Cold stood above him, on a path made of solid ice that he'd apparently created in mere seconds through the use of his cold gun.

_We can do that?_ The younger Captain Cold thought stupidly.

Then the elder fired his weapon from nearly point blank range. Hirose screamed in terror and agony as his right arm was sealed in a chunk of ice all the way up to his shoulder, along with his own cold gun.

The elder Captain Cold hopped down from his perch and gave Hirose's frozen arm a solid kick. Both the limb and the gun shattered into a million frozen pieces. Hirose's screams doubled in volume and intensity.

"Quit whinin'!" the elder man growled as he took hold of the back of Hirose's blue parka and forced him to his feet. "You're not even bleeding." He added, noting the wound on his younger counterpart was frozen closed.

"How?" Hirose whimpered as Captain Cold marched him around the car he'd been using as cover. "How did you beat us so easily? We were supposed to be at least as good as you. They even made sure we had neuroses similar to yours when they picked us."

"Idiot," Cold growled. "Bein' damaged doesn't make you a Rogue, no more than the weapons and the costumes do. They ain't what makes it work."

"Then what does? What are we missing that you have?" Hirose asked.

"Simple," Cold said. "We made it work because we _had_ to make it work. This group was the only place where any of us ever really belonged. Not like you idiots. Whatever fancy psyche profiles you might've had done, you were still men in costumes playing a game."

With that, he gave Hirose a hard shove, sending him sprawling onto the pile of his unconscious comrades.

"What do yeh say, Cold?" Mirror Master asked.

The old man in the blue and white parka thought for a few seconds. "Bastards have brought us nothing but trouble," he decided, nodding to Weather Wizard.

The master of winds and storms grinned, raising his wand. "Mark Twain once said that the problem isn't that there's too many fools," he said, and thunder boomed as the previously blue sky above them quickly darkened. "It's that the lightning ain't distributed right. Let's see if we can't fix that…"

* * *

Vibrate.

That was what the Flash was trying to do. According to Denise, Barry Allen had gotten trapped in a block of ice by Captain Cold more than once, and the way he'd gotten out of such situations was by vibrating his molecules. That would heat up his body, which would allow him to escape from his frozen prison.

It had seemed so easy when her old friend had told her about it. After all, the Flash had already mastered the technique of vibrating her molecules in such a way that it made her invisible. Doing it to warm herself up should've been simplicity in itself.

Except that it wasn't. Thanks to the extreme cold, her molecules didn't _want_ to vibrate, and trying to make them do it was like running uphill…while carrying a rabid puma.

So she struggled to get her molecules moving while she watched the old Rogues systematically take the new Rogues apart, right up until the older men had the younger ones in a big, pathetic pile.

She saw the older Weather Wizard brandish his wand around, and even though all the ice she could hear the thunder. A jagged bolt of lighting burst from the clouds above them, and to the speedster's eyes it seemed to be descending toward the defeated Rogues in slow motion.

_"No!"_ She yelled, finally managing to burst forth from the ice.

There was no way even she could move all four of the beaten men out of the way of the lightning bolt in time. Instead, the Flash rushed toward the elder Weather Wizard, kicking the older man in the gut and causing him to double over. She wrenched the glowing baton from his hands and gave it one furious wave.

The bolt of lightning changed course only a heartbeat before it would've crashed into the new Rogues and killed them all. Instead, it made a nearly perpendicular turn that would've normally been completely impossible, slamming into the side of a nearby building and all but destroying one wall, sending chunks of concrete spraying through the air.

The three old Rogues who were still armed instantly moved to attack the scarlet speedster, but she was well ahead of them, quickly zipping over to where the new Rogues lay in a pathetic heap.

"You beat them," she said, grabbing Weather Wizard's wand in both hands and snapping it in two. "It's over. There's no need to kill them."

"You gonna stop us?" Heat Wave asked.

"If I have to," the crimson comet said, putting her fists on her hips as she glared at the old men.

Of course, after these guys had managed to dispatch the new Rogues in minutes, even the Flash wasn't too optimistic about her chances against them. Sure, they were ancient, but they were a Clint Eastwood kind of ancient; all four of them were definitely tough old bastards.

That didn't mean she could just step aside and let the new Rogues die, though. She was always up for a challenge, anyway.

Mirror Master threw his head back and laughed. "The lass is just like Allen all right!" he proclaimed.

"Thanks!" the Flash said. "I like to think I'm easier on the eyes, though."

"Aye," Mirror Master agreed.

Captain Cold reached over and gave his fellow Rogue a small smack. "She can't be more than sixteen," he scolded.

"Hey, I'm old, but I ain't dead," Mirror Master said.

Captain Cold scowled. "What do you think? Should we let the pretenders live?" he asked his partners in crime.

Heat Wave shrugged. "We destroyed their weapons. They can't cause much trouble for us anymore," he pointed out.

"And killing _is_ against the rules," Weather Wizard pointed out. "It would be foolish to come here just to make our troubles go away and end up buying new ones instead."

"All right," Cold nodded. He turned his weapon toward the ground and fired, creating a sheet of reflective ice below their feet. "We'll let the fakers live."

"Yeah, you forgot about something, chief," the Flash said. "You just destroyed a guy's arm. You think I'm just gonna let you leave?" she asked.

"You want us?" Cold asked, pointing his weapon at her. "Come and get us."

He squeezed the trigger. The Flash was ready to dodge the beam of absolute zero, but it never came. It seemed like the gun had misfired.

Mirror Master pressed a button on his gauntlet, and the Rogues started to sink into the ice. The Flash instantly surged forward, but the speedster almost immediately found herself running into what seemed like a wall of frigid air, and her strides slowed down, like she was trying to run through molasses. Nearly frozen molasses.

"It's called a cold field," the leader of the old Rogues informed her as his and his fellows sank deeper and deeper into the mirror of ice beneath them. "Be glad that phony with one of my old cold guns didn't know how to make one."

"If you come back here…" the Flash scowled.

"Relax, girlie," Captain Cold said. "We're too damn old to start up the game again. We only came outta retirement because those idiots were getting the cops interested in us again.

"Anyway, a word to the not-so-wise, kid," Cold continued. "Barry Allen didn't win so much just because he was fast. He won so much because he was smart, too."

Then the old Rogues were gone, leaving the Flash alone with the new ones, none of whom looked like very much of a threat. After finally escaping the cold field, she looked around, seeing that one of the ice walls was starting to form cracks. By the looks of it, the police were minutes away from breaking through, at the most.

They could take the wounded new Rogues to the hospital, the Flash decided. It was time for her to go.

_I just hope they don't think I did this to them,_ she thought as she ran off. _If I'd beaten them up, there would've been less destroyed limbs and third degree burns and more boot print-shaped bruises on their asses._

* * *

As it turned out, the police _did_ assume that the Flash was the one who'd so grievously injured the Rogues, but only at first. Once they actually examined the badly battered group of men that they easily took into custody, it became obvious that the injuries they'd suffered had been inflicted with the Rogues' own specialized weapons.

So before the Rogues even regained consciousness, the theory became that they had turned on one another for some reason while battling the Flash.

When they _did_ wake up, they had no desire to contest the investigators' hypothesis. They knew that the real Rogues wouldn't be happy if they told the police about _their_ part in the battle.

So the Rogues docilely allowed the authorities to treat them and then place them into holding cells, with the possibility that Commander Ikari would pull strings to get them free serving as their only hope.

Given that they had failed in their mission, it was a faint hope indeed.

Barring any intervention from NERV, the case against them was open and shut, and their trial would be more of a formality than a legal contest.

With the Rogues' fate all but predetermined, and the Flash's innocence assured, most of the people in Tokyo-3 were only too happy to nearly forget about the whole incident involving the group of super villains.

Most, but not all.

Which was why, only a couple of weeks after the Rogues had been taken into custody, Jessie Quinn made her way into the main police station of the T3PD, dressed in a pantsuit that cost her a month's worth of her discretionary income.

"Can I help you?" asked the officer at the front desk, a hard-eyed, black haired woman in her mid thirties.

"I hope so," the blonde said, affecting a light Russian accent. "My name is Tatiana Alkaev. I work for the International Court of Justice." She handed the officer a fake ID card.

The cop at the front desk frowned. "What can I do for you, Ms. Alkaev?" she asked guardedly.

"You have recently arrested a group of men wielding powerful, unconventional weapons and abilities, yes?" she asked. "The ones identifying themselves as the 'Rogues'?"

"That's correct," the officer said, knowing that it had been in all the papers. "But what business is that of the World Court's?"

With the rise of the UN following the Second Impact, the International Court of Justice had likewise increased in power and clout. It was still fairly rare for a representative of the ICJ to just spontaneously appear and start sticking her nose into local legal matters, but it was never a welcome occurrence when one did.

"Cases involving criminals who have genetic abnormalities causing them to manifest extraordinary abilities—'super villains' to use the common term—have been placed under the jurisdiction of the World Court by UN Resolution Number 2078," Jessie explained. "As such, I am here to take charge of the whole affair."

The officer's eyes widened. "Let me go and get my captain," she said, quickly scampering away into a back room.

A moment later, a burly officer in his fifties appeared, looking more than a little peeved. "I'm Captain Takeshi. What's this I hear about the ICJ trying to take the Rogues from us?" he asked, not even inquiring as to the blonde's name.

Undaunted, Jessie explained the situation again.

"I see," Takeshi said. "Well, I'm sorry, but you've come all this way for nothing. The four men known as the Rogues do not fall under that resolution, and as such they will remain under our jurisdiction."

Jessie had expected him to say something like this, but she still acted surprised. "Explain," she demanded.

"The Rogues all wielded extraordinary _weapons_, which were probably not of their own construction, but there's nothing extraordinary about _them_," Takeshi explained. "On the contrary, they're all just ordinary men. Wounded ordinary men, now."

"I must see all the evidence from the case to confirm this," Jessie said.

"Miko, take Ms. Alkaev to the evidence lockup and show her what she needs to see," Takeshi ordered the officer who'd been working the front desk.

He left it unsaid that she shouldn't be left alone for even a moment, but the younger officer clearly got the message.

"Right this way," Miko said.

She led Jessie to the evidence room and got out the relevant materials. "Here are the doctors' reports. They state with certainty that the Rogues are regular human men," Miko said, handing her some documents.

Jessie took a cursory look at the medical reports. "What about the physical evidence?" she pressed.

"Right here," Miko said, taking a cardboard box off the shelves and opening it up. "There's less than you'd think. All the weapons were completely destroyed."

Jessie ignored her, taking plastic baggies containing various items out of the box. The stuff really had been badly damaged; practically all of it was either charred or torn somehow.

Also, most of it wasn't very interesting to her.

She was almost ready to give up when she pulled out a plastic bag containing exactly the sort of thing she was looking for. It was a little burnt, but she could still recognize it.

A NERV ID card.

"This was found on one of the Rogues?" she asked Miko.

"Yes. The one calling himself Heat Wave," the policewoman answered.

"Hmm."

Jessie continued to examine the evidence for a few more minutes, largely for the sake of appearance, before she proclaimed herself finished.

"Thank you for your cooperation," the blonde said. "If you'll excuse me, I must go and report to my superiors and see how they wish for me to proceed."

Miko nodded, not quite able to suppress a smile. Jessie didn't have to wonder why. No doubt she was glad about repelling the ICJ representative, as well as possibly putting NERV into the international organization's crosshairs in the process. In Tokyo-3, NERV Central was effectively above the law, which many members of the T3PD had quickly grown to resent.

"Of course. Let me show you the way out."

Leaving the police station, Jessie turned a corner, soon finding Ryoji Kaji, who was waiting for her behind the wheel of his car, much like the last time he'd taken her on one of their unofficial missions.

"Well?" he asked as she climbed into the car.

"Your source was right," she said. "It looks like NERV wants the Flash dead."

"And badly enough to sink some real money into the job," the long haired man said thoughtfully as he started the motor. "Equipping a new team of Rogues couldn't have been cheap."

"But why?" Jessie asked as he entered the flow of traffic.

Kaji gave her a sloppy grin, looking amused. "Obviously, Commander Ikari is up to the type of activities that a superhero like that Flash wouldn't approve of."

"Well, _that_ narrows it down," Jessie said, rolling her eyes and scowling.

Kaji just smirked and hummed an obnoxious little tune until they reached the place where she wanted to be dropped off. He could've taken her to her apartment building, of course, but Jessie wanted to keep the odds of her being seen with him to a minimum. It was almost an open secret that the unshaven man was snooping around NERV, so it seemed only prudent for Jessie to avoid advertising the fact that she was spending time with him.

Also, she did _not_ need people to start drawing other, more lascivious conclusions about the two of them.

So, she walked back to her apartment, where she quickly changed into her uniform and got into her little car, heading back to headquarters on her own.

She knew something was very wrong before she even reached the command center. If all the rushing, frantic people hadn't tipped her off, the blaring klaxons would have.

"What is going on?" she demanded, flagging down Hyuga Makoto when she finally reached the heart of the base.

She knew it couldn't be an Angel attack; NERV would've sent out a citywide alert, and she would've been called, if that was the case, but she couldn't figure out what _else_ would merit this sort of reaction.

The bespectacled tech gave her a sympathetic look, and for a moment, Jessie's heart clenched, as she feared that something might've happened to Mari.

"It's the American base," Makoto answered. "The one in Nevada. It's _gone_."

* * *

"The whole base was destroyed?" Shinji asked the next day, a look of pure horror written across his face.

"Yup, that's what Jessie said," Mari confirmed. "When they turned the S2 engine on, it created a Dirac Sea just like the one the Twelfth Angel made, and it swallowed up the Nevada base. Just like that." She snapped her fingers.

Shinji and the Fourth Child were eating lunch in the schoolyard, along with Toji and Kensuke. The pair of boys had initially joined them just to hang with their friend, as well as to be in proximity to the attractive brunette, but they now listened to Mari's description of what had occurred with rapt attention.

For his own part, Shinji found himself losing all appetite as Mari told the story. He'd known that _something_ had happened, but, as usual, he'd been the last to hear about exactly what it was. NERV hadn't deigned to keep him informed.

"So what's gonna happen now?" Kensuke asked.

"Dunno for sure," Mari answered, in between practically inhaling mouthfuls of rice and teriyaki chicken from an oversized bento box. "I don't think the brass has figured it out yet. But a lot of people back home already had the heebie-jeebies about Project-E from when that one Angel attacked Bethany. I wouldn't be surprised if the US tries to wash its hands of the whole thing, or at least comes as close as they can without violating the Vatican Treaty."

"What would that involve?" Shinji asked.

"Well, they're not allowed to cut funding much, so mostly it would be sending Unit Three over here and telling Japan to never even _think_ about shipping back," Mari answered with a little wave of her chopsticks.

Kensuke's eyes widened, and for a second Shinji would've sworn he saw stars sparkling in them. "Does that mean they're gonna need a pilot for it?" he asked.

Toji punched him in the arm. "Dude…" the jock shook his head, obviously disgusted by his friend's display of opportunism in the wake of so many people dying.

If Mari took offense to bespectacled boy's outburst, however, she didn't show it. "Sorry to disappoint you, Kenny, but if the US ships Unit Three over here, then _I'm_ probably the one Central will put in it," she said. "My Unit Five may be awesome, but he's not exactly a city boy. A standard EVA makes more sense for an urban environment, after all, and they'd want to put an experienced pilot in it."

"Oh," Kensuke said, his shoulders slumping. "Well, what about Unit Five, then?"

Mari shrugged. "With no pilot for him, they may just decide to put him into cryo. He's very expensive to maintain. Even more than a regular Evangelion. Central might not want to shell out the money to keep him combat ready at all times when he can't even participate in every battle, especially since the Marduke Institute hasn't selected the Fifth Child yet."

"Bummer," Kensuke sighed.

"Well," Mari set her bento box aside. She had brought much more food than even Toji, but she'd managed to wolf it all down before any of the three boys was half done, even though she'd done more talking since the lunch period began than all of them put together. "I have some business to get to before we have to get back to class. See you later, boys."

With that, she got up and walked off, quickly vanishing into the crowd of students in the yard.

"Poor girl," Toji remarked once she was gone.

Shinji blinked. "Hmm?"

"Oh, come on, man, think about it," the jock said. "A NERV base in her home country was completely destroyed. Not even by, you know, a real enemy. Just—poof!—and it was gone. Swallowed up by a black hole. That would freak anybody out a little, even someone like _Mari_."

Hearing the obvious admiration in his friend's voice, Shinji couldn't help but smile a little. His fellow Stooges' opinion of the bespectacled pilot had risen several notches when he'd mentioned that she'd almost gotten into a fight with Asuka while he'd been trapped inside the Twelfth Angel.

His smile faded as he thought about the rest of what the jock had said, though. Was Mari feeling shaken by what had happened in Nevada? Maybe depressed about the loss of life, too?

She didn't really _seem_ very down, but it could be hard to tell with her. A subdued Mari was still pretty animated by regular standards, and maybe she hadn't been _quite_ as spirited as usual.

"You should go talk to her, Shinji," Toji said. "You know, comfort her and stuff."

Nodding, the Third Child rose. He quickly discarded the remains of his lunch, his appetite not having returned, and then went searching for the Fourth Child. However, she seemed to have completely vanished from the schoolyard.

_What am I even supposed to say to her if I do find her?_ He wondered as he searched. _"Sorry the Nevada base was destroyed by a cosmic horror, and a bunch of your countrymen were killed"?_

He sighed. Offering people comfort and sympathy seemed to come so naturally to others, but Shinji didn't think he'd ever managed to make anybody feel better when they were sad.

Not quite ready to give up on his search yet, Shinji decided to check the roof of the school, thinking that Mari might've gone there. He was guiltily relieved when he got up there and found no one else present.

Sighing, the Third Child lingered on the rooftop, enjoying the cool breeze and the quiet while he pondered over his latest conundrum.

Mari had pulled him out of a bleak mood on seemingly more occasions than he could count since she'd arrived to Tokyo-3, usually just by being her cheerful, quirky, and often confusing self. Now that something bad had happened in her life, he felt obligated to try and do the same for her, but he didn't know how.

_Mari dragged me to an amusement park and made me ride a rollercoaster,_ he thought, recalling the day he'd visited the graveyard with his father. _Maybe I could take her someplace fun, too?_

The only problem with that idea was that between all the hours he had to put in at NERV and his own homebody nature, Shinji didn't really know of any cool or exciting hangouts around the city, aside from the ones Mari herself had previously dragged him to. The only things he could think of were a trip to the movies or maybe a bowling alley, but they just seemed too…normal for Mari. Or too plain, maybe.

He needed something a little unusual, a little unexpected. Something…

"Something I can't even imagine," he said with a small groan, leaning against the railing at the edge of the roof.

The view from the top of the school was actually pretty breathtaking, he noted absently. He could see a huge area of the city, as well as a large portion of the surrounding area. He could even see the changes that had been brought about by the…

His eyes widened. "That's it!"

* * *

Captain Chiron took a deep breath before he opened the doors to the Commander's office and strode inside. It was probably just his imagination, but he thought that the cavernous office looked a little darker than it usually did.

"Enter," Gendo told him gruffly, pointedly not getting up.

The Chief of Section Two strode forward, doing his best to remain cool. He'd known that this was coming.

"Sir," he spoke, stopping a few feet away from Ikari's desk, "as you are no doubt aware, the anti-Flash taskforce has been defeated. Their weapons were destroyed, and they are in police custody. I take full responsibility for this debacle." He bowed formally.

The Commander was silent for a long moment after Chiron said that, merely gazing coldly at the big man. It only took seconds for beads of cold sweat to pop out on the back of his bull neck. The age of dishonored warriors committing seppuku was long over, and yet Chiron wouldn't have been entirely surprised at the moment if Ikari had produced a sword and demanded he perform the act.

Finally, however, Gendo made a small, dismissive gesture with his hand that wasn't quite a wave.

"The failure of the Rogues is regrettable," Ikari said, tenting his hands before his face. "But not insurmountable."

In truth, the Commander suspected that the Flash's battle with the Rogues wasn't quite as simple of an affair as the police were making it out to be. He might not have enough of the pieces to assemble the puzzle, but it seemed unlikely that the members of the special Section Two taskforce had simply turned on one another like that.

Of course, if Chiron felt responsible for the group's failure, and that motivated him to work harder to stop the Flash in the future, then the Commander saw no need to correct any misunderstandings he might've had.

"We must find other ways of combating the Flash," Gendo continued.

"Yes, sir," Chiron agreed, knowing better than to even broach the topic of using NERV's influence to get Hirose and his team released.

"All tried and tested methods of battling someone with powers like the Flash originate from Keystone and Central City in the United States," Gendo said. "There is a certain illicit substance, which is hopefully still available in the criminal underworld of that area, that I need you to obtain. I don't care whether you make the trip yourself or send another agent. A private plane will be provided for the return, to avoid any unpleasantness in getting through customs."

"Understood, sir," Chiron said. "What exactly do you need me to get?"

Gendo silently handed him a piece of paper. Chiron's eyes widened behind his black sunglasses as he read what was written on it.

"Sir, I don't think anyone makes this anymore," he said.

"Then you'd better hope that not all of it was used or destroyed around the time production was ceased," Gendo said, cold menace dripping from every word.

Chiron somehow managed not to swallow.

"You're dismissed," the Commander said.

* * *

The following Sunday found Shinji Ikari climbing the stairs of Mari's apartment building, struggling with the weight of the rather large white cooler that he was carrying.

"Damn elevator would have to be broken," he grumbled to himself as he finally reached Mari's door. He allowed himself a few moments to catch his breath before pressing the doorbell.

Jessie Quinn appeared before him a moment later. "Pilot Ikari, what are you doing here?" she asked.

The Third Child had to put an effort into not squirming beneath the blond woman's gaze. Mari's guardian had never been overtly unfriendly toward him; on the contrary, she was always perfectly polite on the rare occasions where they had any sort of contact, but he'd never been able to shake the feeling that she was wary and suspicious of him for reasons he couldn't even guess at.

"Um, I was wondering if Mari was available to…hang out," Shinji said.

He'd almost said "go out" instead, he realized, which definitely wasn't something he wanted to say to Mari's guardian.

Jessie smiled pleasantly at him, but he thought he saw her eyes narrow slightly. "Well, she's here," she said. "Come inside, and I'll get her."

"Thank you," he said as she stepped across the threshold.

The lieutenant left him in the small living room to wait while she ventured deeper into the apartment in search of Mari. Shinji idly looked around, finding the place to be clean and well furnished. He was mildly surprised to find that the Fourth Child's home was so ordinary, though he didn't really know what he'd been expecting.

"Puppy-kun! What are you doing here?" Mari exclaimed cheerfully as she abruptly appeared in the living room, wearing blue jeans and simple white tank top.

"I thought maybe we could hang out this afternoon," he said. "That is, if you're not doing anything else right now." He added diffidently.

"Nope, my schedule's clear today," she answered. "So, what do you have planned?"

"Can't tell, that would ruin the surprise," Shinji replied, mustering a small smile, even though he felt rather uncomfortable. He wasn't used to being the one who set the itinerary, after all. "We are having lunch, though." He added, hefting the cooler he was carrying.

"All you had to say was 'lunch'." Mari informed him with a grin. "Let's go!"

"Have fun, you two," Jessie said with a small but genuine smile, which she'd been wearing ever since the Fourth Child had used her pet name for the Third. "Just don't shake your security detail."

The two EVA pilots bid the lieutenant a quick goodbye and then made their way to the ground floor.

"So, heard the news?" Mari asked, immediately switching to walking on her hands the moment they reached the sidewalk outside the building.

"That the US is going to ship Unit Three over here?" he asked. NERV had learned about that a few days ago, and everyone at the base had been talking about it, until even he'd managed to get clued in to the news.

"That, and that Central's picked yours truly as its designated pilot," Mari said.

"Oh," Shinji said. He hadn't known about that part. "Just like you predicted. Well, congratulations. What'll happen to Unit Five?"

"To be determined," Mari answered. "Personally, I hope they don't just stick him in storage and forget about him, even though that's what will most likely happen. He deserves better than that."

Shinji shrugged. "Well, it's not easy to make an Evangelion, so maybe they'll find something for it," he said, even though he privately thought Mari's earlier assessment about NERV putting it into cryostasis indefinitely was probably on the ball.

"It'll be cool to get to go into every battle that the rest of you do, don't get me wrong," Mari continued, doing a couple of forward flips. "Being kept out of the last fight was a major drag. But the truth is that the thing I'm most pumped about is getting a new plugsuit. My old one's just gotten _way_ too small in the chest."

Shinji blushed ferociously and didn't even try to stammer out a response to that. Unsurprisingly, Mari giggled loudly at seeing him so flustered.

The two pilots hopped a bus shortly after that, the pair of them sitting near the back of the sparsely occupied vehicle.

"So, Puppy-kun, what's all this about?" Mari asked, suddenly becoming almost serious now that they were in relative privacy.

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked as he set the cooler down on the seat next to him, relieved to be able to put the heavy thing down.

She shrugged. "Well, don't think I'm complaining, but it isn't exactly like you to plan a surprise trip," she said. "A girl likes to be taken out somewhere nice, of course, but I can't help but be curious." She added, twining her fingers together and putting her hands behind her head.

"Oh, um, I thought you might've needed some cheering up," he said, feeling terribly foolish. So far, Mari was acting as buoyant as ever. "With…what happened to the Nevada base and everything." He added lamely.

"Puppy-kun! That's so sweet!" Mari exclaimed, giving him a quick but bone crushing hug.

Several of the people in the bus turned to look in their direction and snickered. Shinji blushed. Mari didn't.

"So…are you okay?" he asked, trying to ignore how silly he felt asking the question.

She shrugged. "I haven't been sitting in a dark corner and crying, if that's what you were afraid of. I mean, I was always stationed at the base in Kansas, not Nevada, and it's not like I lost my best friend or something," she answered. "Still, I have to admit that what happened was pretty unsettling. And terrible, obviously. Also, Hutch was at the Nevada base at the time of the disaster. I still can't quite believe that."

"Hutch?" Shinji asked.

"Doctor Hutchinson," Mari elaborated. "He was one of the top scientists at Bethany, and a royal pain in my tight, shapely butt. He was always certain that I was synching with Unit Five the 'wrong' way, and he refused to believe that it was his understanding of Evangelion that was off. So he was _always_ coming up with these ways to 'fix' my neural links with my EVA. The last thing he tried didn't work out so well and could've killed me."

"Sounds like he wasn't your favorite person," Shinji remarked.

"No, he wasn't, but as obnoxious as he was, I didn't hate him, either," Mari said. "And I knew him for years. To think that he's just gone now is so _weird._"

Shinji didn't reply to that, since he had no idea what to say.

"Maybe I did need this little pick-me-up, Puppy-kun," the brunette admitted, favoring him with a smile.

It took Shinji a few seconds to realize that he was grinning back like an idiot.

Eventually, the bus reached the stop that the Third Child wanted, which was just outside the edge of the city. He and Mari disembarked, and Shinji started to lead her into the grasslands outside of Tokyo-3.

"Now you've got me really curious," Mari said. "Where we going, Puppy-kun?"

"Just wait and see," Shinji said.

Mari gave him a pout that was so obviously fake and overdone that the Third Child just couldn't help but laugh. However, the bespectacled girl wouldn't have to wait long; their destination soon drew near in the form of a wide, dusty hill.

"Will we be able to see all of Tokyo-3 once we get where we're going?" the Fourth Child asked, obviously thinking that she'd figured it out.

"Not exactly," Shinji replied with a small smile.

The hill turned out to be a bit steeper than the Third Child had expected, and Shinji was forced to eventually allow Mari to help him with the cooler. They were both dusty and sweaty by the time they reached the top.

However, the moment that Mari realized the hill wasn't really a hill at all made it all worth it.

Rather than reaching a peak or a plateau at the top, the ground dipped sharply, forming a deep bowl. An entire lake's worth of blue water sat at the bottom, sparkling in the afternoon sun.

"Whoa! This is so cool!" Mari exclaimed, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "What is it?"

"Remember how the Tenth Angel was dropping pieces of its body as a way to aim itself?" Shinji asked.

"Of course," Mari nodded.

"Well, it only hit land once before it made its big suicide drop," the Third Child said. "Right here. This is the crater from that impact."

"So we're gonna have lunch next to a beautiful lake that was made by a giant explosion caused by an inhuman attacker's mass driver?" Mari asked. "I think that's the dream every girl doesn't know she has." She sniffed.

If Shinji hadn't known better, he really would've thought she was getting choked up.

"I don't think it's _every_ girl's dream, unknown or not," he said, a bead of sweat running down the back of his head.

"Well, it's Super Awesome Girl's dream," Mari retorted, getting a snicker out of him. "Now let's go, Puppy-kun!"

The two teens were able to quickly make their way down into the crater, though Shinji nearly fell face first several times, a fate he was saved from only because Mari was so quick and unusually strong for her size. Finally, they made it to the edge of the lake, and Shinji started unpacking. He hadn't brought a blanket, but a soft carpet of lush green grass had already sprung up next to the lake. Apparently, dead Angel chunks made good fertilizer.

"What keeps the water from going stagnant?" Mari asked as she gazed out at the new lake.

"Um, I'm not sure," Shinji admitted as he spread out the food. "Some kind of underground river, or the city's hooked up some pipes. I know that the water moves, but I forget why." He added sheepishly.

She shrugged. "I guess it's not important, and…" she trailed off as she turned around, blue eyes bulging as she took in the food. "Whoa! What a spread!"

"Oh, this isn't anything," Shinji said modestly. Being familiar with the brunette's appetite, he'd made far more food than he normally would have for two people, but he'd hardly cooked anything fancy.

Mari let out a laugh as she sat down next to him. "I can only imagine what it looks like when you go to trouble, Puppy-kun!" she exclaimed, seconds before she dug in with great gusto.

Shinji ate a little but watched a lot as the other Evangelion systematically plowed through the simple but huge meal he'd prepared, amazed all over again by the amount of food Mari could put away. When the Fourth Child wasn't eating (usually because she had to pause for air) she was raving about how good the food was.

Shinji had a sneaking suspicion that she'd rave about dirt if someone else spooned it up for her, but it was still nice to have someone praise his cooking with such obvious zeal and sincerity. Compliments were never exactly thick on the ground when he cooked for Misato and Asuka.

"Oh, that was _good_," Mari sighed as she finally polished off the last bite, allowing herself to lean backwards until she was laying down on the soft grass. "Thanks, Puppy-kun."

He smiled. "I'm glad you enjoyed it," he said, while silently wondering how it was even physically possible for his fellow pilot to look as svelte as ever after gobbling down so much food.

"A girl could get spoiled to this kind of treatment," Mari commented.

"Um, thanks," Shinji said, coloring slightly.

The brunette kicked both her legs out, using the momentum to help her sit up. She seemed to have shaken off the lethargy that followed a big meal in record time. "So, what do you say we go swimming?" she asked, gesturing toward the lake.

Shinji's eyes widened, and he silently cursed himself for an idiot. It really should've occurred to him, he realized, that Mari would have exactly that idea if he brought her to this place.

Of course, he didn't want to go frolicking in the lake at all. He couldn't swim, which he wasn't particularly keen on admitting to Mari, and he really didn't want to show her just how pale and scrawny he really was.

"Um, aren't you supposed to wait thirty minutes after you eat before you go swimming?" he asked.

Mari laughed. "Oh, please, Puppy-kun, that's for kids and stuff. We EVA pilots are made of tougher stuff," she assured him. "But if it makes you feel better, I promise to give you lots of mouth-to-mouth if you get in trouble."

He blushed. "We don't have our swimsuits with us," he pointed out, relieved to have found a better excuse.

Mari shrugged. "Bathing suits, underwear. They're all the same, right?"

Shinji felt his cheeks warm further, and he was suddenly very conscious of the picture of a bikini-clad Mari that he had sitting in his wallet.

"Um, I can't swim," he mumbled, feeling humiliated.

Half the time it seemed like he was the only person in Japan who couldn't. Everyone else seemed to have fond memories of their parents taking them to the ocean or a lake and teaching them that particular art, but Shinji's previous guardian didn't have time for such things.

"Oh, bummer," Mari said. "And here I was congratulating myself for wearing a bra today, too."

"You mean some days you don't?" Shinji blurted out before he could stop himself.

The Third Child regretted the words the instant they were out of his mouth, and he braced for the slap. He might've been dealing with Mari rather than Asuka, but he had still just made a direct inquiry about her underwear.

But she just smirked at him. "And why shouldn't I?" she asked with mock indignation, placing her hands on her hips. "I'm young! I'll have you know that the girls are plenty firm and perky! I can let them roam free every now and then!"

Shinji tried to apologize for asking such an intrusive question, tried to tell her it had just slipped out. Unfortunately, he could only utter a single syllable at a time as he felt his face growing hotter and hotter.

Mari threw her head back and laughed, then went over to him and wrapped her arms around him, giving him a hug that was a good deal softer and lasted longer than the one on the bus. "If the awesome lunch at the scenic location hadn't me feel like my old self again, that definitely would have," she whispered. The feel of her hot breath on his ear made him shiver. "You're the best, Puppy-kun. Thanks."

"You're welcome," he managed to say as she let him go.

With a dip in the lake off the table, there wasn't much for them to do after that. Shinji started packing up the utensils, plates, and now empty containers back into the cooler. Mari told him that she needed to "freshen up" before they left and quickly made herself scarce.

The Third Child had just gotten everything packed up again when she abruptly reappeared.

"CANNONBALL!" Mari screamed.

Startled, Shinji looked up to see the brunette sailing through the air above him, pulling her knees to her chest as she wrapped her arms around her legs. He had just enough time before she hit the surface of the lake to realize that she had climbed back to the top of the crater's edge and then made an _enormous_ running leap.

Then she made contact with the water, creating a miniature tsunami. Shinji scrambled to get out of the way as it approached him, but it was no good. The cool water crashed over him, leaving him instantly soaked to the skin.

He was just getting his bearings back when he heard her laughing. Turning, he saw her standing about knee deep in the lake as she guffawed.

He swallowed. True to her earlier words, Mari had stripped down to her undergarments before diving into the water. For the umpteenth time that day, Shinji felt his face heating up. He recalled the brief argument Toji and Kensuke had had regarding the otaku's contributions in making their photographs of Mari turn out so out so well. He decided that Toji had been correct to dismiss Kensuke's alleged camera skills, because she looked just as stunning in real life as she did in any of the pictures the bespectacled had taken.

Fortunately for Shinji, Mari was too busy laughing hysterically to notice the effect she was having on him. "You should've seen your face when you first saw me heading for the lake!" she gasped out.

Pursing his lips, Shinji expelled a brief spout of water, which only made her laugh harder.

With a small, wry smile, the Third Child finally decided he had had enough of being laughed at for one day. Emptying his pockets and leaving the contents next to the cooler (and taking care that his wallet remained closed), he strode up to Mari and shoved her into the water. She was laughing too hard to put up any resistance.

She surfaced a second later, and wasted no time in pulling Shinji down with her. He let out a small yelp, but soon realized that the water was so shallow that there was no need to fear drowning. He laughed, and so did she.

"We should do this again sometime," he remarked.

* * *

As the pair of teenagers charged with defending humanity the Angels enjoyed some much needed recreation at the new lake, a far less cheerful scene was unfolding several hundred miles away.

An Evangelion transport plane, one of the largest aircraft ever built by the hands of man, was flying over the Pacific Ocean, carrying Unit Three.

It was an EVA that no one really wanted, despite the massive amount of resources that had gone into its construction. With its sibling having been lost in such a dramatic and yet pointless fashion, everyone who knew about it believed on some level that Unit Three was cursed. No one said as much, of course, but that didn't keep everyone from thinking it.

Unwanted though the Evangelion might've been, _someone_ still had to take possession of it, and since Japan hosted NERV Central, Japan had no real choice but to accept custody of it.

Hence the transcontinental flight.

In spite of all the bad omens, Unit Three might yet have proven all the ill tidings wrong. It could've become a valuable part of NERV Central's arsenal.

It could have, if not for the next Angel.

While it was heading on its way to Japan, the transport plane flew through a large cloud bank. Lightning flashed within the big pile of airy white fluff, with a distinct lack of thunder accompanying it.

Then the transport plane emerged, none the worse for the wear. None of the people on board the massive aircraft ever had any idea that they'd picked up a stowaway.

* * *

"Well, hello there," Mari greeted to the giant in the black armor.

After what had seemed like a very long wait, she was finally getting the chance to introduce herself to her new Evangelion. NERV Central had decided to perform the activation test at their auxiliary base in Matsushiro, which to Mari seemed to indicate that even Commander Ikari was a little afraid that something would go wrong.

She supposed she could understand everyone's fears, but she didn't share them. After all, what could happen with her in the entry plug?

"My name is Mari Illustrious Makinami, and I'll be your new pilot," she continued, gazing up at Unit Three, which was still heavily restrained.

She was probably biased, but she didn't think that the dark EVA was nearly as sleek or as fearsome looking as her Unit Five. Of course, she didn't say that; it wouldn't do to start things off on the wrong foot with Unit Three.

"I have to be honest with you here," she told it. "You've got a tough act to follow. I've piloted an Evangelion in combat before, and Provisional Unit Five was one seriously fierce fighter. We clicked, no question about it."

Mari strode back and forth on the catwalk that was suspended before the black Evangelion's chest for a moment before proceeding.

"Also—and again, I'm just being honest with you—a lot of people think that nothing good will come from you, thanks to what happened with your brother," Mari said, making a placating gesture as she explained. "Now, I want you to know that I don't blame you for that, but there _are_ plenty of people around here that don't like you."

She placed her fists on her hips. "All that said, there is absolutely _no_ reason we can't have an excellent working relationship," she proclaimed with conviction. "I am totally willing to give this 110 percent if you are. If you fight _with_ me instead of _against_ me, I'm sure we'll be able to kill plenty of Angels together, all while indulging in tons of gratuitous violence and destruction!"

The sound of one person clapping slowly could be heard from the edge of the catwalk as she finished.

Not the least bit abashed at having been caught giving Unit Three a pep talk, Mari turned and saw Misato and Jessie standing nearby. Her guardian was the one doing the clapping.

"That was a very rousing speech," the blonde said wryly.

"Thank you," Mari said, smiling. "It's so important to make a good first impression."

"You know it can't actually hear you, right?" Jessie asked.

Mari turned to face Unit Three again. "Don't listen to her," she advised in a faux whisper.

Jessie rolled her eyes. "So I take it you're enjoying your new post?" she asked.

"Absolutely," Mari nodded. "Hell, I haven't even gotten into Unit Three's entry plug yet, and the new plugsuit alone makes it worth it." She gestured to the pink garment she now wore. "This one fits my bust perfectly, see?" She thrust her ample chest forward with enough force to produce a noticeable jiggle.

Sighing in exasperation, the blond lieutenant pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just go and get into the entry plug," she said. "They're almost ready to start the test."

"You got it," Mari said with a small salute, bouncing off toward the elevator that would take her to her destination.

The two officers were completely silent until she was well out of sight.

"Damn it, Misato," Jessie grumbled.

"Huh?" the purple haired woman frowned, bewildered.

"I _told_ you to stop feeding her whatever it was you ate as a teenager," the blonde deadpanned.

The Ops Director made it a full three seconds before she burst out laughing.

* * *

A mere twenty minutes later found Mari situated inside the plug, enjoying the relative freedom that the standard entry plug configuration allowed her. Unit Five's plug was more spacious, but all the cables that she'd needed to connect to her old plugsuit to operate the Provisional Unit had been really restraining. Much as she hated to admit it, she could definitely see herself getting to like piloting a regular Evangelion more.

"Are you ready, Pilot Makinami?" Dr. Akagi asked, a communications window popping up on her HUD.

It was so nice to have everything displayed on the big screens around her, rather than to have to wear that bulky helmet, she decided.

"Ready and raring to go, Doc," she said, giving the bottle blonde a thumbs up.

Dr. Akagi gave her a nod and then closed the connection. Over her radio, she could hear the chatter of the technicians as they ran through the process of rousing Unit Three. Seconds later, she could hear the hum of the machinery that was embedded in the Evangelion's armor and body as it came to life, barely loud enough for her ears to detect.

The first stage neural connections came on-line after that, and Mari felt her heartbeat accelerate with her mounting excitement as her mind was linked to that of the Evangelion.

She knew, of course, that they were just going to turn Unit Three on, then take some readings and call it a day. However, she was okay with that, at least for the moment.

What most people who worked for NERV didn't get, or refused to accept, was that beneath their armored, mechanical exteriors, Evangelions weren't gallant defenders of humanity. They weren't knights or samurai or anything like that. Evangelions were more like mad dogs. They were wild animals.

They were beasts.

"Initiating second stage connections."

Mari inhaled sharply, the distinctive scent of LCL flooding her senses as she felt the link grow stronger.

An Evangelion could not be tamed, not really. They could be _controlled_, yes, through the synchronization process, but it was impossible to change their nature. And though Asuka and the rest of NERV seemed to believe that the synchronization ratio was the full measure of how well a pilot could control an Evangelion, Mari knew better. She had always known better.

To get the best results out of an Evangelion, the most important thing was to embrace its bestial nature, to work with it, and doing that meant reaching deep down, into the part of every human that had never been civilized, that was still an animal. To bring that part of herself to the forefront as she piloted.

She had thought she was the only pilot who understood the true nature of Evangelion until she'd seen Unit One bursting forth from the Twelfth Angel in a cascade of blood.

"Commencing third stage connections!"

_Yes!_ Mari thought.

Then the lights inside her plug abruptly went out, plunging her into complete darkness. Her connection to Unit Three evaporated.

"Well, _that_ was anticlimactic," she complained. "What happened out there? Somebody trip the circuit breaker? Unit Three and me were just getting cozy!" she shouted.

No one answered her, and Mari sighed, realizing she might be waiting for some time. She leaned back in her chair, not looking forward to boring couple of hours she likely had before her.

Then she felt something brush against her foot, and Unit Three began to move, quite without any command from her.

"This is probably a bad sign," she decided.

* * *

"There's been an accident at Matsushiro?" Shinji gasped, suppressing the urge to throw up. "What happened exactly? Are Mari and Misato all right?"

The instant he'd gotten the order from NERV to scramble, the Third Child _knew_ that something had gone very wrong with the Unit Three activation test. He hadn't wanted to believe it, though.

He really wished someone had told them before they'd all gotten inside their entry plugs, though. That way he could've vomited and emptied his stomach without having to worry about making the inside of his LCL-filled entry plug a very disgusting place to be.

"I'm afraid we don't have much information," Maya said apologetically. The mousy brunette looked very small and meek at the moment, even in the tiny communications window on his HUD. It also seemed simply wrong for her to be there, rather than Misato. "All we know is that there was an explosion, and we're detecting a blue pattern, which is why we're deploying the three of you."

"Okay," he said, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself down. "But, um, who's going to command this battle? With Misato missing…"

"I will command this engagement, Pilot Ikari," the Commander announced.

Shinji grimaced, but he knew better than to argue.

"Evangelions, launch!" Makoto shouted.

The electromagnetic lifts fired, catapulting the trio of Evangelions toward the surface. The armored giants emerged a good distance away from the city, in the shadow of Mount Nobe. The Angel must've covered a lot of distance if NERV had sent them here, Shinji realized.

"Okay, we're here, so where's the Angel?" Asuka asked, looking around.

"There," Rei spoke softly, and Unit Zero pointed.

Shinji inhaled sharply as she saw it. Silhouetted by the bloody glow of the late day sun, there was no mistaking the distinctive shape.

"But that's an EVA," he breathed. "That must be Unit Three."

"It is emitting a blue pattern," the Commander announced. "We are receiving no data from it. Clearly, the Angel has seized control of it. It is now the enemy, and you must destroy it."

"What?" Shinji asked, eyes widening.

* * *

When Mari came to, she wasn't inside Unit Three's entry plug anymore. Now she was standing almost knee deep in a seemingly endless sea of LCL. There was no sun or moon in the eerily orange sky, instead, the world was illuminated by a massive pair of glowing wings that was situated far on the horizon. They seemed to be made of some kind of living fire and stretched so high into the sky that the Fourth Child couldn't really see the tops of them.

_This is so weird,_ she thought. _How can I be standing up when I was just unconscious?_

"Hello, there."

Startled, Mari quickly turned, and suddenly found herself facing…herself.

An exact duplicate of Mari Illustrious Makinami stood a couple of yards away from her, wearing her school uniform. Unlike Mari, the doppelganger was standing on the surface of the LCL, as though it was as solid as concrete, so she was able to look down at the other girl.

"Whoa, you look just like me," Mari remarked.

"I _am_ you," her mirror image corrected.

"Uh huh," the brunette replied, clearly skeptical of that claim but not interested in picking a fight over it. "Hey, do you think you could turn around?"

"Why?" the doppelganger asked, looking confused and taken aback.

"I always wanted to know exactly how my butt looked in that skirt," Mari explained, as though it should've been obvious. "And really, how many times does a girl get an opportunity like this?"

The other Mari gave her an annoyed look. "I am not turning around for such a reason," she said flatly.

Mari rolled her eyes. "Fine, be that way," she grumbled. "I'm pretty sure that skirt makes my butt look hot, anyway."

The faux Mari shook her head in apparent disgust. "This is the way it always is with you, isn't it?" she asked.

"Eh?"

"Cloaking your fear and pain with brevity," the duplicate elaborated. "You lilin are all such fragile creatures, caught in a constant battle against death that you must ultimately lose, all while waging a fruitless campaign to find something that will give meaning to your brief existences. Even the ones that look so strong to others—the ones like you—are really _so_ weak to those who can see your souls, the ones who can see the truth."

"And what truth might that be?" Mari asked, crossing her arms and arching an eyebrow.

"Only the obvious," the doppelganger said. "That your humor, your bravado, your violence…it's all just an illusion. A shield to hide your true self, and the private pains you wish to share with others but cannot." Her smile widened. "That the Mari Illustrious Makinami who exists in the minds of those who know you is a lie."

* * *

This was bad, Shinji decided, this was really, _really_ bad.

The Angel possessed Unit Three was a wild berserker with abilities and powers that no regular Evangelion had. It was a wild monster with no thoughts and no desires other than to reach Tokyo-3 and destroy anyone or anything that got into its way. It had already managed to incapacitate Units Zero and Two, felling the both of them with blinding speed. It had its hands around Unit One's neck. Yet that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was that Mari's entry plug was indeed still trapped inside the thing, kept in place by a web of some gray goop that seemed to make up the parasitic Angel's body.

"God damn you, you monster! Let her go!" he roared, somehow managing to pull the black Evangelion's hands away from Unit One's throat. Grabbing hold of the back of its neck, he pulled it down, causing Unit Three to crash face first into the ground with enough force to make the Earth tremble.

Even as he did it, Shinji winced. He had no idea if Mari could still feel Unit Three's pain or not, but he wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the Angel had left that part of the neural connection intact. As it was, he was afraid to really hurt the possessed EVA at all.

Yet even though he was keenly aware of the possibility that everything he did to Unit Three had the potential to harm Mari, he still fought, still took the risk of doing harm to his closest friend in order to try and save her. He did it because he knew that Mari was a fighter, and that she'd want him to do this.

Pinning Unit Three down on the ground as best he could with Unit One's knees, he carefully reached for the entry plug, terrified that he would crumple the thing like a soda can the instant he touched it.

The black Evangelion bucked violently before Unit One's fingers could ever touch the metal cylinder, however, throwing the purple EVA off of itself. In an eye blink, Unit Three was on him, and the pair of war machines was wrestling for dominance.

Every time Shinji thought he had it under control, he lunged for the entry plug, only to have Unit Three stop him at the last moment.

"Pilot Ikari, your mission is to terminate the Angel, not rescue the Fourth Child," the Commander reminded him testily.

"But I can't just abandon Mari like that!" Shinji argued.

"I am giving you a direct order," the Commander said, his voice cold enough to refreeze Antarctica.

"Oh, shut up," Shinji grumbled under his breath, closing the communications channel.

He probably would've found that extremely satisfying if he wasn't so preoccupied with getting Mari's entry plug.

His frustration with the whole situation mounting, attacked Unit Three with far more force than he'd dared to use before. With a loud grunt of effort he knocked it down again, shoving is face into the hard ground beneath them. The possessed EVA actually seemed dazed by the blow, and he immediately moved to seize his chance. Pressing Unit Three's head deeper into the dirt with Unit One's left hand, he reached for the metal cylinder where his closest friend was a prisoner of the Angel.

The walls of his entry plug went dark just an instant before he could reach it, the red emergency lights flooding the enclosed space a second later.

"What the hell?" he wondered aloud, his eyes widening.

Even with his insubordination, rendering Unit One inoperable couldn't possibly be preferable to leaving him in control of the Evangelion.

Then the walls of the plug came back to life, filling with the familiar whirl of colors and images before showing him the world outside once more. However, his neural connection to the EVA had changed; he could still feel what it felt (which at the moment consisted of Unit Three's hands around its throat yet again; the black EVA had definitely not hesitated to make use of Unit One's hesitation), but he could no longer command it.

Before he could even take a guess at what was going on, the message "DUMMY SYSTEM ACTIVE" appeared on his HUD in huge, red letters.

"Father, what did you do?" Shinji whispered, horrified.

* * *

Meanwhile, as the purple and black giants clashed outside, the world inside Mari's entry plug was quiet as the brunette stared silently at her doppelganger, struck dumb by what her mirror image had said.

Then the silence was broken as Mari threw her head back and laughed.

She laughed and laughed for several long moments, the sound somehow echoing in the vast emptiness of the sea of LCL. She laughed so hard that she could barely breathe, and big, fat tears of mirth started to roll down her cheeks.

"Oh man!" she gasped out when she had calmed down slightly. "Oh man! That's…that's _hilarious!_"

Her doppelganger could only stare at her, a mixture of confusion and distaste on her features.

Mari drew in a great, wheezing breath before she managed to speak again, still giggling between words. "I mean, let's get real here. We both know you're the Angel, not some manifestation of my subconscious or anything deep like that," she said to the faux version of her. "You're a damned _eldritch horror_ that's somehow gotten into my head…and the best you can do is tell me crap that I've heard a thousand times before!"

She broke into another fit of laughter at that, practically doubling over at she wrapped her arms around her belly.

For almost as long as she could remember, she had had to deal with adults who assumed that she was hiding deep feelings of depression. She was an orphaned girl brought up in the military and charged with defending humanity against monsters that spanked whole armor divisions without slowing down. They looked at her cheerful demeanor and just assumed that it _had_ to be a facade.

Very few of the grownups in her life had ever seemed willing to believe that when it came to Mari Illustrious Makinami, what they saw was what they got. Jessie believed it, which was one of the reasons Mari liked Jessie so much; the blonde never tried to "fix" her. But so many others thought it was completely impossible that a child in her situation could be happy with her life, never mind that she could absolutely _love_ her life that way Mari did.

Some even came off as disturbed by the idea of her being happy and seemed to want her to be miserable just so she would be more like they felt she "should" be, which would allow them to help her. Ultimately, Mari suspected that even Hutch's obsession with correcting her way of synching had had something to do with the scientist secretly feeling that way.

"So, you deny it, then?" asked the Angel, for that was what the duplicate Mari really was. "You deny it all? You deny that all of your kind are pitiful, weak, incomplete, and miserable creatures?"

"You're damn right I deny it!" Mari exclaimed. "I'll deny it until my dying breath!"

"In that case—"

Before the Angel could get any further, the endless expanse of LCL around them trembled briefly, as though from a very mild, very brief earthquake. The faux Mari looked around, frowning.

The LCL trembled again, a little more violently this time.

"What is happening?" the Angel asked.

Mari grinned wickedly. "Oh, that? Well, you see, I've kind of been accelerating my thinking speed the entire time we've been having girl talk," she explaining, pointing to the side of her head. "And since you've obviously plugged yourself into my brain, I guess that means that _you've_ had to think faster, too, in order to keep up with me. Seems like you're starting to have some trouble with it." She observed almost off-handedly.

"You have increased the speed at which your brain works?" the Angel asked, her blue eyes widening.

"Yup," Mari answered. "I do it all the time. I have to, otherwise I wouldn't be able to keep track of anything when I run. Only difference is that this time I'm not running." Her grin widened. "You thought you had me trapped here, didn't you? Sorry to break it to you, but you're the only one who's been caught. I'm going to keep accelerating my thinking speed until whatever you have that passes for a brain _explodes!_"

The sea of LCL was churning violently now, like the real ocean in the middle of a hurricane. Even the very air around them seemed to be shuddering. The great wings of fire in the distance grew dimmer.

The Angel let out a small, strangled gasp, falling to her knees, then going down on all fours.

"You can't do this to me!" she shouted, her cry one of mingled fury and terror. "I am Bardiel! I am a child of Adam! I am perfection through complementation!"

"Yeah? Well, _I'm_ Mari Illustrious Makinami!" the Fourth Child proclaimed, hooking a thumb toward her chest as she strode over to the Angel. "I'm an Evangelion pilot, and it's my job to defend humanity from the likes of you! We humans may be flawed, but we'll fight like animals in order to survive, even for just one more day! We don't need your complementation, and we reject your version of perfection!"

The Angel looked up, gazing at the pilot with blue eyes that were exact copies of Mari's own, except that they were filled with terror. Not so much at the fear of dying, but more the fear that humanity might not be as pathetic and weak as she and all her siblings assumed.

"Now _die_!" Mari snarled.

The last thing Bardiel saw was the bottom of the Evangelion pilot's boot rushing down to meet her face.

* * *

The next thing Mari knew, she was opening her eyes, and she was back in her entry plug. The red emergency lights had come on, but considering what the illumination showed her, she wished they hadn't. Some kind of gray, fungus-like substance had half filled her entry plug. She was covered in the stuff up to her waist.

"Ew, gross!" she exclaimed, suddenly very glad that her plugsuit covered her from neck to toe with an airtight seal.

At least the stuff wasn't too tough, she noted as she managed to pull her hands free. In fact, it seemed to be withering right before her very eyes.

"I guess that means I managed to scramble the Angel's mind," she said to herself. "Now how do I get—?"

Her musings were abruptly interrupted as she felt her plug lurch violently, and she suddenly realized that it had been pulled from Unit Three's back. Only an Evangelion could have yanked the metal cylinder out with such speed.

Before she could pull the lever to open the hatch, the walls of her plug started to crumple, and Mari's eyes widened as she realized that her entry plug was about to be crushed.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** This turned out to be a long one. With the way the old Rogues ended up stealing the show at the start of this chapter, I wanted to show her fighting a major enemy, which meant going all the way to the Thirteenth Angel. I'd really wanted to do that scene anyway, though, so it was hardly a labor. I've done a number of mind screws in the course of my NGE fan fics, and it was good to do one that subverts the way these things usually go. The Angel's utter failure to mess with her mind hopefully further drives home the point that Mari just isn't quite like the other characters in Eva.

But now how will out heroine escape this latest predicament? Guess you'll come back next chapter to find out.

As always, thanks to my readers and reviewers.


	12. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Eleven:** Speed Against Might

Mari Illustrious Makinami had a unique way of looking at the world, to put it mildly.

She greeted situations that others would've viewed as disasters with a manic grin. She had had responsibilities thrust upon her that most people would've viewed as crushing and saw them as a means to do exciting things. More than one person she'd encountered had thought (if not said) that she was completely crazy.

Still, there were _some_ situations where she reacted exactly like anybody else would have.

"Okay, this is bad," she observed mildly as she watched the walls of her entry plug starting to crumple.

More or less.

Having just defeated the Thirteenth Angel in a battle waged inside her own mind, Mari had believed that the worst was over, but she'd discovered otherwise as soon as she'd opened her eyes. Apparently, one of the other Evangelions was enthusiastically attacking Unit Three, and naturally her radio was out, so she couldn't tell whoever it was to stop. Nor could she fight back; Unit Three had most definitely been rendered inoperable.

Of course, being the Flash, she could escape from this predicament, but the problem was escaping without making it blindingly obvious that she had special powers. After all, if NERV realized that she was a superwoman, then the best case scenario would be them yanking her out of the entry plug, and she couldn't have _that_. Piloting an EVA was just way too much fun.

She'd just had an _awesome_ fight with an Angel specifically because she'd been named Unit Three's pilot, after all.

_What do I do? What do I do?_ Her mind spun at hyper speed, but she couldn't seem to come up with anything.

* * *

Shinji had thought he knew what horror was. He had thought that his time piloting EVA, along with the other unpleasant experiences he'd endured throughout his life had taught him that, and why shouldn't he have believed it? Though he'd never been formally diagnosed, he was pretty sure he had a long list of mental issues that would prove he knew firsthand what horror was.

He had been wrong. He hadn't known what horror was until this moment.

"No!" he screamed. "Stop this! Please stop this! Can't you see the Angel's dead?!"

His plug was filled with red light, and though _some_ of his neural links with Unit One remained intact, all those let him do was feel was the EVA was feeling, such as the sickening sensation of Unit Three's bones snapping in its armored hands.

"Father, I'm begging you! Stop this!" the Third Child shouted. His voice was growing hoarse, but he didn't care.

Unit One had already ripped its possessed sibling into bloody chunks; the black Evangelion was utterly incapable of offering any further resistance, but the Commander still refused to deactivate the Dummy System.

"Oh no," Shinji moaned as he watched—and felt—Unit One's hands reach into the soft, mutilated flesh of Unit Three's remains and pull out a long, white cylinder.

Mari's entry plug.

For several seconds, the Third Child was mute with terror as Unit One opened his jaws, breaking the armor and restraints that normally held its mouth shut, then placed the plug between its teeth. For one bizarre instant, Shinji found himself thinking of a dog with a bone, except that this was obviously nowhere near as innocent.

After all, no one cared about an animal gnawing on a bone; whatever it had once been a part of was already dead, unlike the living, breathing human trapped inside that entry plug.

"Stop this! Please!" he kept begging, and though it didn't show in the LCL, Shinji knew that he was crying.

Unit Three's entry plug started to crumple in the purple Evangelion's jaws. Shinji could feel it; the phantom pressure on his own teeth abruptly seemed to lessen somewhat as the metal began to give.

Shinji knew Mari had only seconds left, at most.

_"Father!"_ he screamed.

The Commander remained silent, and in a moment of harsh epiphany, it finally hit Shinji that it had _always_ been like this, at least since his mother had died over a decade ago. Oh, in his time in Tokyo-3, there had been times when his father really did seem like he might be a decent person. Shinji had occasionally dared to hope that they could repair their badly damaged relationship.

Yet now he finally realized that every time he'd really _needed_ his father, the man simply hadn't been there for him. He hadn't been there when his mother had died, and he certainly didn't intend to be there for him now.

"God damn you…" he breathed as hope abandoned him.

_**CRACK!**_

The vice grip of Unit One's jaws finally broke Mari's entry plug. The center—the part where the pilot would be—was instantly crushed, while the ends were broken off and went tumbling to the ground, LCL gushing everywhere.

Shinji covered his mouth, not just at the horror of it, but because he could _feel _the ruined remains of Mari's plug inside of it. It was just a phantom sensation generated by his link with Unit One, of course, but that really didn't matter to him at the moment. It was all he could do not to vomit into the LCL surrounding him.

Then Unit One opened its mouth, allowing the remains of Mari's plug, now no more than a hunk of crumpled metal good for nothing but scrap, to fall out. It hit the ground with a dull thud.

Something snapped the instant the metal impacted against the earth. Amazingly, it wasn't anything inside Shinji.

Instead, it was the Dummy System's control over Unit One. The Third Child didn't know why the autopilot system had relinquished command; maybe it was because Unit Three had been completely destroyed, and so without any threat present it had switched itself off. Maybe the thing just had a few bugs in it still.

Either way, a traumatized and _furious_ Shinji Ikari was now once again in command of one of the most powerful weapons humanity had ever made.

_"Father!"_ the Third Child roared as Unit One abandoned its power cable and went sprinting in the direction of NERV headquarters.

* * *

The personnel in the NERV command center were all deathly quiet as the test type Evangelion ran back toward Tokyo-3 and headquarters. It wasn't long before Unit One had broken even the EVA speed records it had set when it had raced to catch the Tenth Angel before it could strike the Earth.

"Estimated time until Unit One arrives here?" Gendo asked.

Everyone flinched at that; something about the way the Commander's cold voice invaded the moment of stunned horror was particularly unnerving.

"Uh…" Aoba belatedly responded, typing at his console. "Approximately two minutes, sir. That would leave the Third Child with three minutes to attack the base." He added unnecessarily.

"Father!" Shinji's voice burst from the speakers in the command center. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't destroy half of headquarters when I get there! Answer me, damn you!"

Everyone on the command center turned and looked up at their leader, but Gendo remained completely silent, keeping his entwined fingers in front of his face, like it was any normal day. Not at all like there was a giant cyborg controlled by a betrayed and enraged teenager barreling toward them all with lethal intent at that very moment.

When it became obvious that no attempt to placate the boy would be forthcoming from the Commander, Maya tentatively decided to try.

"Shinji, he _had_ to turn on the Dummy System! If the Angel had made it here, it would've been the end of the world!" she pleaded with him to see reason.

"So he had to leave it on after Unit Three had been torn to pieces?!" Shinji growled. "Bullshit!"

"You disobeyed orders, Shinji," Aoba added quietly.

"And so he decides to punish my best friend?!" the Third Child seethed. "And anyway, that's not the point! He used my hands to murder someone! Father! I know you can hear me! I _will_ destroy headquarters if you don't _answer me!_"

Gendo reached over and flipped a switch on the arm of his chair, turning off all the microphones on the command center.

"We have no time for this childish tantrum," he said coldly. "Can we cut the pilot's neural links to Unit One?"

"Um, no, sir," Makoto answered. "The shut down system seems to have blown when the Dummy System went offline."

"Then increase the pressure of the LCL until the pilot is knocked unconscious," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," Makoto said reluctantly, entering the command.

On the main screen, Unit One stumbled and then fell, its momentum carrying it forward. The purple behemoth bounced along the ground like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake, kicking up enormous amounts of dirt each time it hit the earth, until it finally came to a stop.

Then, amazingly, it raised its huge hand, as though intending to keep pulling itself forward. Several people in the command center stiffened in fear.

Commander Ikari did not.

Unit One's arm went limp and fell back to the ground as the Evangelion's glowing white eyes went dark.

"Damn you, Father…" Shinji gasped out just before he finally slipped into oblivion.

* * *

There were some days that Miko Tsukuda thought that working for NERV was really cool. After all, even if she was only a minor part of the organization, she was still doing her bit to help protect the world from the Angels. On those days she felt important, almost inspiring even.

Other days, not so much.

This afternoon was definitely putting the whole day into the "not so much" category.

"God, this is horrible," she breathed, as she looked out at what had been the latest battlefield in the war against the Angels. The area had been painted red with Unit Three's blood.

"Okay, people," Miko's supervisor called, and she and several other NERV personnel, all clad in heavy hazmat suits, immediately turned their attention to him. "Our priority right now is to find and retrieve the remains of the Fourth Child. The MAGI aren't detecting any blue patterns, but everyone keep alert for any remnants of the Angel that might still be alive anyway."

Miko winced slightly at the way he so casually spoke about finding the body of a dead teenage girl.

Personally, after the EVA pilots had pulled off so many stunning victories against incredible odds, Miko had started to think that they were practically invincible. It made the reminder that they really weren't that much more unpleasant.

With a sigh that was too quiet to be heard outside her cumbersome suit, she went off to search the debris and destruction.

_Hard to believe that even something as huge as an Evangelion can hold __**this**__ much blood,_ she thought as she walked through crimson puddles. No matter how many times she told herself that her hazmat suit had its own air supply built in, she couldn't convince herself that she wasn't smelling all the blood.

She really should've volunteered to go to the remains of the Matsushiro base, instead, Miko decided belatedly.

"The Commander had better hope that Lieutenant Quinn died back there," she muttered to herself grimly as she picked through the wreckage. "Otherwise I bet she'll put a bullet in his brain for him."

She didn't really know the American officer, but everything Miko had heard about them indicated that Quinn viewed Makinami as a daughter.

Miko wouldn't want to be the Commander right now…not that she ever wanted to be him, really.

"Hey! Is someone out there?!"

The muffled shout immediately caused the woman poking around the recent battlefield to jump almost a foot—not an easy task while wearing a heavy hazmat suit, but her surprise made it possible.

"Who was that?" Miko demanded, looking about frantically.

She liked to think of herself as a scientifically-minded person with no use for superstition, but in _this_ place, it was all too easy to think there might be ghosts about.

And that _had_ sounded a lot like the Fourth Child…

"It's me!" the voice shouted again, and now Miko was _positive_ that it was Makinami. "Can you get me out of here? This thing is really cramping my style! And my…everything else!"

Looking about, Miko finally located the source of the voice, and her jaw instantly dropped open.

One of the ends of Unit Three's entry plug that had broken off when Unit One had crunched it between its jaws was laying on the ground nearby. The broken end appeared to have been pinched completely shut; she couldn't see any spilled LCL anywhere on the ground near it.

"Pilot Makinami, is that you in there?" Miko asked, approaching the remnant of the entry plug.

"…you know that question just _begs_ for a sarcastic response, don't you?"

"Yeah." She admitted, feeling stupid.

"Okay, good. Then no, it's Prince Albert. As you can see, I'm kinda stuck in a can here."

That was _definitely_ the Fourth Child all right.

"But…how?" Miko asked, bewildered, as she walked over to the fragment of the entry plug that held the EVA pilot.

"I saw that my plug was starting to collapse in the middle, so I rushed to one of the ends," Mari answered. "You'd be surprised how fast I can move when I think I'm gonna die."

"I'll bet," Miko said. "Are you okay? That must've been quite a drop to the ground."

"Yeah, it was. I broke some bones, but I got better while I was waiting for somebody to find me," Mari answered with her usual flippancy. "Now do you think you could _get me out of here_?"

"Oh, right," Miko said, her cheeks flushing red. "Let me go and get some help!"

The news that Pilot Makinami was miraculously alive galvanized the other NERV personnel who had ventured out to the killing field, and in only minutes they were very carefully cutting a hole into the fragment of the entry plug.

The instant they were done, a small flood of LCL came gushing forth, and Mari herself tumbled out onto the ground a moment later.

With a loud, unpleasant sounding heave, the EVA pilot expelled all the LCL from her lungs and then took a deep gasp of air. "Oh, wow," she said dazedly.

"Are you all right, Pilot?" Miko asked, offering her hand up.

"Yeah, I'm good," Mari said, then, either ignoring or simply not noticing the other woman's gesture, she abruptly threw herself to a standing position, placing her hands on her lower back and thrusting her obnoxiously impressive bust out in one explosive motion. Miko could hear her back pop even with her hazmat suit muffling all sound. "Getting stuck in such a tiny space and being forced into a weird position for so long does _not_ do awesome things to the human spine, though."

"I can imagine," Miko replied.

Mari nodded absently, rolling her undoubtedly stiff shoulders. "So, did anything much happen while I was stuck in there?" she asked.

Miko and her assembled co-workers hesitated.

"Uh, well…"

* * *

Sitting in the dark confines of a solitary detention cell at headquarters, Shinji didn't think he'd ever been quite this miserable before. Which, considering the life he'd had so far, was really saying something.

He had once thought that seeing his mother abruptly die and then having his father abandon him was as bad as it would ever get. Shinji had never really subscribed to the that this was in any way a good thing, even though he knew others might try to give it an optimistic spin and point out that once you'd hit rock bottom like that, then there was nothing else to fear. Even if he had been inclined to think that way, he would've been wrong.

The day he'd arrived in Tokyo-3 had, if not surpassed that day, then had at least rivaled it. To come face to face with his father again, only to be treated as a tool, as a weapon component, and then be blackmailed into playing the part, when he had gone into it partially hoping to reconcile with the man and partially hoping to get a good opportunity to tell his father where he could shove it…it hadn't been a good day, to put it mildly. Also, it had dredged up all the memories he didn't want to think about, on top of everything else.

Even so, this was worse. Those days had been terrible, but in neither of them had Shinji been used as an instrument of murder against someone he cared deeply about.

"Father…" he whispered into the darkness, thinking about how the Commander had been at least partially responsible for all the events on that trio of dark days.

He was just starting to contemplate what he'd do when he was released from solitary confinement when he heard the tumblers in the lock of his cell's armored door starting to turn.

Shinji held up a hand to shield his face from the light as it streamed into his cramped confines from the hallway outside. Squinting against the painful glare, he could _just_ make out the shape of the person who had come to pay him a visit, seeing that the person was a girl of approximately his height.

_Why would Asuka or Rei come down here?_ He wondered.

"You okay there, Puppy-kun?"

Shinji's jaw dropped. It couldn't be. It was impossible.

Yet he knew that voice.

"Mari?" he asked quietly, afraid to hope.

"How many other people call you 'Puppy-kun', Puppy-kun?" she asked cheerfully.

"It _is_ you!" Shinji gasped, and he was so surprised and relieved that it didn't even occur to him that Asuka had recently taken to using the Fourth Child's pet name for him.

Jumping off the cell's hard bench, Shinji rushed toward the brunette and impulsively threw his arms around her, squeezing her tightly. For once he didn't get the least bit flustered by the feel of her chest pressing up against him; he was too relieved to see her alive.

"Whoa, happy to see me, Puppy-kun?" Mari asked, surprised by his reaction. She still hugged him back, though.

"I thought you were dead!" he exclaimed, and he abruptly realized that he was on the verge of tears. It took a great deal of effort on his part to prevent himself from going to pieces right then.

Mari laughed, backing away from him but leaving her hands on his shoulders. "You think something little like an Angel that possesses Evangelions and a crazy, berserk EVA could take me out?" she asked.

"Yeah, that was silly of me," the Third Child responded with a little laugh, even though he still felt like he could easily start crying if he let himself. "It would take at least another three Angels."

"Try another three dozen," Mari boasted, flexing her arms. "Then you'd be in the ballpark, at least."

Shinji just shook his head, smiling. He couldn't quite believe that after the events of that day, the brunette was smiling and joking around just like normal.

"How did you survive, though?" he asked, looking her up and down for any sign of injury. "I saw Unit One crush your plug. Between its teeth."

"Yeah, but an entry plug is longer than an EVA's jaw is wide, so I scrunched into one of the ends," Mari said, as though it was a very simple thing to do.

Shinji just stared at her for several seconds, barely able to wrap his mind around what she'd apparently done. He couldn't imagine being in a collapsing entry plug and having the presence of mind to do anything except maybe scream in terror, never mind being able to move fast enough to pull that off.

"Wow."

Mari shrugged, smirking smugly. "They don't call me Mari Awesome Makinami for nothing."

"I thought you were Super Awesome Girl," he said.

"I go by many names, most of which include the word 'awesome', for obvious reasons," Mari said with a dismissive wave. "Anyway, I should probably get outta here. I'm not really supposed to be here at all. I sorta slipped the guard some cash to take a long bathroom break. See you tomorrow, Puppy-kun?"

Shinji let out a small, bitter laugh. "I doubt it."

Mari frowned. "Why do you say that?" she asked.

"Mari, when I thought that you were dead, I just got so angry that I lost control of myself," Shinji said. "I threatened to destroy headquarters. I would've done it, too."

"Okay, so? You're the best EVA pilot," Mari said. "Just say you're sorry and promise to never do it again and they'll almost have to let you out."

Shinji blinked stupidly at her and didn't say anything for a few seconds. At first he was surprised at her nonchalant response to his admission that he'd been ready to attack NERV HQ, an act that would've certainly killed people, though once he thought it out, he supposed it wasn't _that_ surprising. There was no way it had been news to her; Mari must have asked _why_ he was confined to a dark little cell at some point, after all.

Once he got off that and onto the other part of what she'd said, however…

"Mari, I'm not going to apologize to my father," he said flatly.

He didn't care if they left him to rot in this cell until he had a long white beard; he was _not_ going to say the words "I'm sorry" to the Commander.

"Why not?"

"He tried to turn me into a murder weapon!" Shinji retorted. "And he tried to use me to murder _you_. You may not think that's a big deal, but I _do_!"

He closed his mouth with a snap the moment he said that. Shinji hadn't intended on getting quiet that…emotional, but it had just sort of slipped out.

However, Mari just responded to his outburst by shaking her head with an odd sort of grin on her face that left Shinji feeling vaguely anxious.

"Puppy-kun, Puppy-kun, Puppy-kun," she began in an almost chiding tone. "Look, I won't lie or pretend. I admit that the whole berserker rage and quest for vengeance thing over little old me was _really_ touching. It got me all hot and bothered, in fact." She added in almost a whisper.

"Wha…what?" Shinji stammered as his cheeks flushed.

That was _not_ the response he'd expected.

"But if you keep it up you'd just be drawing it out past the point where it's hot, and you'd only be making yourself suffer," she pointed out in a more normal tone. "Was the Commander a jerk for turning that crazy autopilot system on? Absolutely. But you don't get to make the guy at the top apologize. Not in these kinds of situations. It sucks, but that's all there is to it. The only thing you get to do is decide whether you wanna suck it up and say sorry to somebody you'd rather punch in the face and then go hang with me, or if you want to tell him where to stick it and then sit in the dark feeling pissed off for god only knows how long."

Shinji hesitated at that. A moment ago, refusing to apologize to his father—ever—had seemed like the principled course of action. A part of him still felt that it was. Yet Mari made it sound like such a silly thing to do.

The sound of heavy footsteps could suddenly be heard from not too far off.

"Whoops, looks like that's my cue to exit, stage left," Mari said, before turning to give him a look. "Think about it, Puppy-kun. I hope to see you soon."

* * *

"God," Misato said softly.

"No sign of God here," Jessie replied grimly. "No sign at all. Just destruction."

The two officers were standing at the edge of the valley where Unit One and Unit Three had had their battle to the death, both of the officers having emerged from the ruins of Matsushiro alive but battered. The Ops Director had one arm in a sling and a white bandage wrapped around her head, while the Lieutenant's leg was in a splint and she was walking with the aid of a cane.

It was a day after the battle, but the whole area was already starting to smell. NERV had cleared up the larger chunks of flesh, but countless smaller bits remained. Also, nothing but a good rainstorm would wash away the blood, so the whole valley had begun to stink of decaying flesh. It was something that would get worse before it got better.

Of course, there had been no real need for Misato and Jessie to venture out to this highly unpleasant place. The Ops Director had just felt like she should go and see what had come of the Angels colliding head-on with NERV's mad creations and a teenager with a traumatic past. Jessie had felt like no one should have to make such a grim pilgrimage alone.

"So how's Shinji?" Jessie asked after a long moment of silence between the two of them.

"Still cooling his heels in a solitary confinement cell," Misato answered. "They wouldn't only let me see him."

"And that stopped you?" the blonde asked with just the barest trace of humor, which seemed like more than the locale was willing to permit.

Misato favored Jessie with the hint of a smile, anyway, even if she didn't feel like grinning. They were friends, after all.

"The old wink-and-a-jiggle didn't work this time," the Major said.

"Don't tell me you're losing your touch?" Jessie asked automatically. It was what she had always said in the rare cases when her friend's feminine wiles failed to get the desired results, but it clearly wasn't the right thing to say in this situation, and she couldn't help but since a bit.

"No," Misato said. "Ikari had doubled the guard on the block."

"Why?" Jessie frowned, unable to believe that the Commander would view Shinji as a threat without his EVA.

Misato shrugged. "Don't know. When I asked the guards, one of them muttered something about a recent breach or something. It's not important," she shrugged. A beat passed. "So, how's Mari?"

"Oh, just as cheerful as ever," Jessie said, sounding exasperated. "I know I should be glad that she's so unflappable, but sometimes…"

"Yeah," Misato said. Even though she definitely didn't have that issue with her own wards, she could understand where her friend was coming from. Sort of.

"Of course, it's not like most of the people around here would care all that much if Mari _wasn't_ okay," Jessie said bitterly.

"Huh?"

"Oh, come on, Misato," Jessie grumbled. "You know most of Central views Mari and Unit Five as outsiders that they had forced on them. Hell, aside from you, the brass takes every chance they can to slight her."

Misato frowned. "That's not true."

"Really? Then why is Mari the Fourth Child instead of the Third? Why'd Central count the pilot they pressed into service a few months ago before the one who's been training for years?" Jessie demanded. "Why didn't you guys ever number the Angel that she killed back in Nevada? Does it not count because Mari fought it back home in Kansas?"

"Oh, I don't know," Misato said, shaking her head. "Does numbering really matter to you that much?"

"What matters to me is that Commander Ikari didn't think twice to sacrifice Mari, just to teach his son a lesson against disobeying him," Jessie growled.

"And you think Ikari was ready to do that because Mari's a Yankee?" Misato asked. "He probably would've done it if his own mother was in Unit Three's entry plug."

"That doesn't exactly make me feel better," Jessie remarked.

"Fine, whatever," Misato said, finally resigning herself to the fact that her friend was not willing to be placated.

Not that she could really blame her, she supposed. After all, if it had been Shinji in Unit Three, she'd be ready to breathe fire right about now.

"We should probably get back," the Ops Director added.

"All right," Jessie agreed with a nod.

They walked back to the waiting VTOL in silence, and though the blonde didn't plan on airing her grievances again any time within the foreseeable future, they only hardened her resolve to protect Mari. She had thought that Tokyo-3 was a dangerous place for her ward before this, after all. Seeing the depths that the Commander would blatantly sink to, however, made that reality even more stark.

_If only everything was that simple,_ she thought as she and Misato climbed into the aircraft that would take them home.

Because of course it wasn't all a straightforward "us versus them" type of thing.

Gendo Ikari was already papering over the whole incident, doing everything he could to downplay and conceal it, even going so far as to alter the MAGI's records of the battle. As an officer sworn to be loyal to both the United States and the UN, Jessie had little choice but to give her superiors the true version of the battle. Or at least the truth of the battle as she had heard about it, having been unconscious at the time. Of course, that version would still be a lot more accurate than the account Gendo and the Committee were offering everyone.

That would be bad for Gendo Ikari, which Jessie was completely fine with, even though she had no illusions that the report of one soldier with no real proof to offer would result in the King of NERV being pulled down from his throne.

Unfortunately, it was entirely possible that her actions would have negative consequences for Shinji Ikari, as well, who had flagrantly disobeyed orders and threatened to attack NERV headquarters. In fact, it wouldn't surprise her a bit if the Third Child ultimately ended up suffering far more as a result of the truth coming out. After all, the Commander was a powerful man who could doubtlessly call in favors when push came to shove.

Shinji didn't have those resources at his disposal, and though Jessie remained somewhat cautious of the Third Child, she was slowly becoming more and more certain that there really wasn't anything more than met the eye with him. Also, there was no denying that her own ward was growing increasingly fond of him.

_I just hope that nothing happens to make Mari hate me,_ she thought dourly as the VTOL took off.

* * *

"You were blatantly insubordinate the other day, and worse, you threatened to attack headquarters," the Commander said coldly.

That was it, Shinji noted as he glared at his father from across the man's cavernous office. No preamble, not even a token attempt at reasonableness or persuasion. Just an accusation and a demand.

Not long ago, the Third Child might've gotten upset about that, but not anymore. He hadn't expected much else when the guards had opened his cell, slapped handcuffs on him, and marched him up to the Commander's office.

He had accepted that his father would never give him what he needed or be there for him, after all.

So rather than get angry, or throw his own accusations back, Shinji just stood there.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Gendo finally asked when it became obvious that the Third Child wasn't going to speak unless directly prompted.

Shinji looked his father in the eye. "I'm sorry."

The Commander actually looked just a _little_ surprised by that, assuming that Shinji wasn't imagining it. The Third Child took a bizarre sense of triumph from knocking his father momentarily off balance, even though he'd done it by being unexpectedly accommodating.

"I could point out that I'm a minor you basically conscripted into your war, and that it's unrealistic to apply the same standards used to judge professional soldiers on me, but I don't think that argument is going to carry a lot of weight with you," he continued, making a point of looking the Commander in the eye while he said this. "So I'll just say that it will never happen again."

The Commander was silent for a long moment after that, and despite telling himself that he just wasn't afraid of the man the way he had once been—that his father could no longer hurt him the way he used to be able to because Shinji no longer held out hope of a relationship with him—the Third Child could feel beads of cold sweat starting to run down the back of his neck.

"Because you were stopped and failed to harm anyone, your actions can be overlooked. Once," the Commander finally said, and it was obvious that Shinji didn't want to know what would happen if he did such a thing a second time. "Your pay will be suspended for three months. Now, you are free to go. The guard outside will remove the shackles."

"Yes, sir," Shinji said curtly, then turned and walked out without another word. True to his father's word, the guard unlocked the handcuffs he was wearing, and then the Third Child was allowed to go on his merry way.

_That was…intense,_ he thought to himself as he stepped inside an elevator and pressed the button to take him to the ground level.

Apologizing to the Commander had hurt him like a physical pain, and he wouldn't have done it at all if not for something Mari had said to him during her visit to his cell.

_"You're the best EVA pilot. Just say you're sorry and promise to never do it again and they'll almost have to let you out."_

Ever since the day he'd arrived in Tokyo-3, he'd been told how important he was, but his own importance always seemed to be used _against_ him. He was so important that he _had_ to pilot. He was so important that it was okay for everyone else to _make_ him pilot, to expect it of him.

So just once he felt like _he_ was using his own alleged importance against someone else. Of course, it was basically an illusion he'd concocted so he'd be able to say the words he needed to say when the time came, but feeling like he'd seized just a little bit of control had still made him feel so much better about it all.

The elevator came to a halt, releasing a loud ping. A second later, the doors slid open.

Shinji almost wasn't surprised to find Mari there, seemingly waiting for him. She wore a broad grin.

"Hi, Puppy-kun."

* * *

_That was…unexpected,_ Gendo mused as he sat alone in his office.

Of course, that the Third Child had said he would continue to pilot was a good thing; despite what the Commander might have wished, it was hard to dispute that anyone but his son would ever be able to get optimal performance out of Unit One, given the nature of the test type's core.

Still, he couldn't help but find it unsettling that Shinji had managed to surprise him. He wasn't nearly as omniscient as he'd managed to make most people believe, but he had found nearly all of the Third Child's actions and reactions since arriving in the city to be almost laughably predictable. He couldn't help but dislike a break from this trend, even if it went in his favor.

His thoughts were interrupted as a red button on his desk started to blink. Resisting the urge to sigh, he pressed the button.

Immediately, all the lights in his office went out, save for the one right above his desk, and motorized shutters slid into place over the large window, plunging the room into even greater gloom than usual. A moment later, there was a soft whir as holographic projectors hidden in the walls and floor came to life.

Gendo arched an eyebrow when Chairman Keel, and only Chairman Keel, appeared before them. Not a full meeting of the Committee, then. Unusual.

"Ikari," the old cyborg greeted him.

"Keel."

"I recently received news that a more accurate version of the latest battle reached the UN Security Council and the Secretary General, most likely by way of the American government," Keel said.

Gendo's eyes narrowed. "Quinn."

Not that he had expected her to keep quiet, of course, but it was still an annoyance.

"Undoubtedly," Keel nodded. "I wish you luck if you intend to try and prove it, however."

Gendo did his best not to sneer. He wouldn't waste his time on such a venture and Keel knew it. "What's the damage?" he asked instead.

"The UN is going to order that psychological evaluations are conducted on the pilots," Keel answered.

Gendo didn't show it, but the committee chairman's words sent fear stabbing into his heart. There was no way the Children would be deemed mentally fit for combat; he had seen to that for three quarters of them, and Makinami appeared to be innately insane.

"There is good news, however," Keel added before Gendo could object. "I was able to pull strings. You get to choose the psychologist who will conduct the evaluations."

The Commander of NERV immediately felt his heartbeat starting to slow at that. "I know just the man for the job," he said.

"Good," Keel said, though Gendo was able to detect that he was mildly annoyed. No doubt he'd hoped to supply the psychologist himself and thus get an easy way to gain information about the Children, and probably his own plans in the process. That he hadn't even bothered to suggest as much showed that he knew Gendo wasn't planning on ever agreeing to _that_. "You owe me one, Ikari."

Without another word, Keel terminated their communication, and his hologram winked out.

Gendo allowed himself a small snort as the lights came back on his office. Keel would be in for a nasty surprise if he ever tried to cash in that favor, not the that chairman was naïve enough to make such an attempt. In any case, Keel had been working to protect the Scenario and nothing else.

Reaching into one of his desk drawers, the Commander started to look for his old phone book (paper was so much more difficult to hack than a hard drive). It seemed like he needed to look up an old friend.

* * *

Not long after he had touched down at Central City International Airport, Captain Chiron had discovered that the criminal underworld of the urban area had changed significantly since the death of Barry Allen.

There _was_ still a criminal underworld, of course. In fact, the crime rate in the twin cities had increased significantly over the past few decades, but the criminals had changed with the times. The strange but powerful weaponry once wielded by the area's more colorful villains just weren't necessary to make a dishonest living in the absence of the Flash. With the police displaying zero tolerance for anyone who even vaguely resembled the speedster's old foes, the men in the goofy costumes had all departed from the stage in one way or another, and common thugs, drug dealers, Mafioso, and gang bangers had taken their place.

Which was very bad for Chiron, since none of those people even knew what the substance he was looking for _was_. After days of searching with no luck, the Section Two man was at his wit's end. He knew that if he didn't achieve his objective, then it would probably be better for his health if he never returned to Tokyo-3.

Which was why he was so glad to have _finally_ found a lead.

Even if he was a little suspicious of the whole thing.

"Come on, man," the low life leading him through Keystone's slums growled at him.

"I'm following you," Chiron scowled, not appreciating the way the little worm was trying to boss him around. "Calm the hell down."

He rolled his shoulders awkwardly as he went down the city street, feeling very strange in the jeans and hoodie that he'd worn to look less out of place in his current surroundings. He felt rather exposed and unarmored without his usual black suit, even though his current attire didn't offer any less real protection than the more professional look did.

At least he got to keep the sunglasses.

"This isn't some walk in the park, man," his escort scolded.

"Look, in order to get this far, I had to grease a lot of people's palms, including yours," Chiron retorted. "So I don't want to be hurried for no damn reason."

The thug cursed under his breath but didn't argue further. After a few minutes, the two men arrived at a factory that had obviously been closed down for a long time; the crumbling edifice was nothing more than the hollow shell of industry now.

"He's in there," Chiron's nameless escort said, coming to a stop in front of one the building's side doors. "Remember, no sudden moves. He may seem like an ordinary guy, but the T-man is freaking _crazy_. You forget that, you're gonna lose an eye or something."

Chiron arched an eyebrow, suddenly realizing that the other man was so edgy because he was afraid of the man they were about to meet.

"I'll remember," he said.

He opened the door, and they walked in. Only one person was inside the abandoned factory, a less than extraordinary looking blond man sitting on a dusty old conveyor belt.

_He's just a kid,_ Chiron thought at first.

However, he realized otherwise as he approached him; the guy seemed to age with every few steps that Chiron walked. By the time the two were right next to each other, the man was looking decidedly over the hill, and most of his hair looked more white than blond.

Even so, there was a certain manic gleam in his eyes that made Chiron think of a reckless adolescent who thought he was invincible and was ready to do something incredibly stupid and violent.

"Hey there," the guy greeted him, and he seemed friendly enough. Chiron didn't let down his guard, though. "I hear you're lookin' for something special." He grinned. "What exactly might that be?"

Chiron was sure that he already knew what it was, and under other circumstances the question might've made him fear that he'd walked into some kind of sting. However, he was completely certain that the man in front of him was no police officer, and would never work with one, so he told him.

The blond guy chuckled. "Man, just hearing about that stuff is a total blast from the past!" he exclaimed jovially. "That crap hasn't been around since the good old days!"

"But you know where to get some?" Chiron asked, struggling to keep from showing how eager he was.

"Nope, but I can put you in contact with someone who can, if there's any of that crap still out there," the blond guy replied. "And since you gave me an excuse to walk down memory lane, I think I will."

"Thank you, Mister…?"

"Walker," the man replied with a smirk. "Axel Walker."

* * *

"Hey, what's up, Puppy-kun?"

"Oh, hi, Mari."

It was a few days after the battle against the Thirteenth Angel, and things had more or less returned to normal. The return of routine things like school, homework, and tests at NERV had reasserted itself even more quickly than usual, since the battle had taken place well outside of the Tokyo-3 city limits. It was thanks to those sync tests that the two pilots had bumped into one another in the halls of NERV headquarters that afternoon.

Unfortunately, things weren't quite as normal as they appeared, at least not for Shinji. Oh, everything might have looked the same as ever on the surface, but there was one important difference.

Everyone was scared of him.

No one was outright admitting it, of course, but it was impossible to miss the wary looks everyone was giving him, and the way people flinched whenever he made a sudden movement. Even Asuka had been acting skittish around him, and Misato seemed to be holding him at arm's length, too, as though she didn't quite know who he was anymore.

Apparently, all this must've shown on his face to some degree, because the Fourth Child noticed it almost instantly.

"Okay, what's wrong now?" Mari asked, putting her hands on her hips as she gazed at him intently.

Shinji winced; he didn't really want to discuss it. Briefly, he considered trying to avoid the whole conversation, then eventually decided that it would probably be far easier to instead avoid the process of her dragging it out of him.

"Everyone's afraid of me," he said quietly. "Ever since I was let out of solitary confinement."

Mari paused for a moment, as though considering what to say in response to that.

"Puppy-kun…you are _really_ overestimating yourself," she proclaimed.

"…what?!" Shinji asked, caught by surprise.

Even though he'd come to expect the unexpected from her, she could still somehow surprise him and catch him off guard.

"I mean, yeah, I said that it made my heart go pitter-patter when I found out what you'd done while I suck in that oversized sardine can, and I meant it," she continued, as though she hadn't heard him. "But _scared_ of you? No way. To be perfectly honest, you'd have to do something _way_ more fearsome than just going ballistic while behind the wheel of a seventy meter tall death machine to scare _this_ girl."

Shinji couldn't help but smile a little at that. There was something weirdly uplifting and amusing about her over the top braggadocio.

"There's nothing you're scared of, is there?" Shinji asked.

"Well, I wouldn't say _nothing_," Mari replied. "But…almost nothing. I am pretty badass. Not to brag or anything."

Shinji chuckled. "So, what—?"

The Third Child didn't get any further before alarms started to screech throughout the base, accompanied by flashing red lights in every room and corridor.

"Another Angel?" Shinji gasped. "Already?!"

"Perfect!" Mari clapped her hands together. "If you do well in this battle, then everyone will forget about what happened with the Thirteenth Angel, you just watch. Now let's go!"

Shinji wasn't at all sure about that, but there was no opportunity for him to debate the issue. A second after she'd made this declaration, Mari grabbed hold of his hand and started practically dragging him in the direction of the locker rooms so they could change into their plug suits.

* * *

"Okay, guys, this Angel obviously means business," Jessie addressed the pilots a few minutes later as the Evangelions were being moved to the appropriate launch catapults. "It appeared only moments ago, and it's been tearing its way through all of the city's static defenses ever since."

"There's no time to deploy you to the surface," Misato added. "Therefore, we're going to have to send you up into the Geofront. We're already moving a cache of weapons up there for you to use."

"Mari, since Unit Five isn't able to use standard Evangelion weaponry, NERV had attached some to your EVA," Jessie said. "Once you've expended all your ammo, there's a button in your cockpit that will allow you to detach them so you won't be needless encumbered by the extra weight."

As the Lieutenant finished that part of the briefing, a window labeled "From EVA-02" popped up on Mari's oversized visor.

"Aw, poor Makinami," Asuka said with mock sympathy. "Your EVA's too clumsy to use weapons."

"My Unit Five _is_ a weapon," Mari retorted with a smirk. "And anyway, you're just jealous because I have more ordnance than you do."

With the destruction of Unit Three, Central had removed Provisional Unit Five from cryo-statis, and Tech Division Two had somehow managed to attach the M-type equipment to it for the coming battle in record time.

Mari _really_ liked the M-type equipment, which consisted of a series of rocket launchers that had basically been welded together and then draped onto her Evangelion. She generally preferred to get up close and personal with her enemies, but there was just no denying the satisfaction that came from unleashing a series of massive explosions.

_It is __**so**__ good to be back with you, Unit Five…now if only they'd make me a new plug suit,_ she thought.

She couldn't wear her new pink one while piloting the Provisional Evangelion, which meant she'd had to stuff herself into the old green one, which had become so absurdly tight in the chest by this point that Mari had been forced to breathe in short little gasps until they'd flooded her entry plug, and the LCL had started to oxygenate her blood directly.

She'd really have to talk to Jessie about that once this was over, she mused.

For now, though, war.

"Evangelions, launch!"

With a burst of electromagnetic energy, the quartet of Evangelions was sent barreling upwards, but it was a shorter journey than usual. They emerged inside the Geofront only seconds after departing from the inside of headquarters, coming out not far away from the NERV pyramid. Units Zero through Two wasted no time in raiding the promised weapons cache.

Not needing to make any such preparations, Mari just stared up at the Geofront roof, her eyes narrowing. She could clearly hear the sounds of battle raging up above, even across so much distance and through the thick plate which separated the city above from the massive cave below.

"It's a big one all right," she remarked to no one in particular.

Fire and smoke bloomed from a point in the roof above them, and as the explosion subsided, the Evangelion pilots got their first look at the Fourteenth Angel. It was a big, blocky sort of thing, with four stubby limbs and a ghastly, skull-like face. Its core was embedded in the center of its body, gleaming like a ruby.

"Attack!"

As one, all three of the standard Evangelions opened fire with their pallet rifles, sending almost solid streams of metal toward the Angel at incredible velocities. Inside her own plug, Mari slammed her fist down on a gloriously red button, and a volley of rockets erupted from the M-type equipment.

The onslaught would've been complete overkill for just about anything other than an Angel, but as smoke engulfed the form of the Fourteenth, the pilots all stopped firing and waited, none of them truly believing that their enemy was dead.

Still, they were all surprised when the Angel emerged completely unharmed from the black cloud.

"We didn't even scratch it!" Shinji gasped.

"Shut up and keep shooting!" Asuka barked at him, as Unit Two discarded its now empty rifle and quickly went to get a new weapon from the cache.

"Forget those puny pallet rifles!" Mari yelled. "This is gonna take a lot more gun than that!"

The other three pilots obeyed (Asuka would later claim that ignoring the relatively small pallet guns had been her intent all along). Unit Zero grabbed a positron rifle, while Units One and Two each claimed a rocket launcher.

"All together! Fire!" Asuka shouted.

The standard EVAs unleashed yet another barrage, while Mari fired off her second and last volley of missiles. The shells spawned another cloud of smoke just before the antimatter weapon's payload hit its target, resulting in a massive explosion so powerful that Mari felt the shockwave from inside her EVA.

_I love this job,_ she thought, a manic grin plastered on her face.

"Did we do it?" Shinji asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Is it dead?"

His question was answered a moment later as the Fourteenth Angel emerged from the fire and smoke, blackened by soot but otherwise undamaged. It continued to approach the Evangelions and NERV headquarters, as inexorable as death itself.

"Well," Mari said, "we might just break a sweat with this one."

She hit the button in her cockpit to ditch the M-type equipment, and several small charges embedded in it went off. However, the now empty rocket launchers failed to completely separate from one another and fall off of Unit Five's massive form.

"Damn it!" Mari hissed, as she began attempting to remove the M-type equipment with Unit Five's clumsy claw hand.

As she was struggling to get her EVA free, the Angel finally came to a halt, touching down on the ground with surprising lightness. It was only a few (giant-sized) paces from the Evangelions. As the pilots and all of NERV watched, the nubs of its arms unfurled into long, thin appendages.

For a moment, the Geofront was deathly silent.

Then Unit Two broke out into a sprint, charging toward the Angel and brandishing a progressive spear.

"None of you are better than me! None of you can defeat me!" Asuka roared. "None of you!"

One of the Angel's long arms lashed out, heading straight for the crimson giant, but Unit Two hit the appendage hard with the shaft of its spear, diverting its course away from it. With a thunderous battle cry from its pilot, Unit Two grabbed the weapon with both hands, moving to plunge it onto the face of beast.

She almost succeeded before she was brought to an abrupt halt in mid-charge. The Angel's arm had snaked back around, wrapping itself around Unit Two's waist from behind. The crimson Evangelion struggled, but it couldn't immediately get itself free.

"Asuka!" Shinji cried, as Unit One took off toward her, grabbing hold of its progressive knife.

The Angel flung Unit Two at the purple Evangelion, and both pilots cried out as their war machines collided, landing in a heap right next to the NERV pyramid.

Just as they were coming to a stop, Mari at last succeeded in liberating Unit Five from the M-type equipment, which tumbled noisily to the ground.

"_Finally!_" she exclaimed, throwing her EVA into motion. Its armored tires threw up great clods of earth and grass as it took off across the Geofront, its progressive lance emitting a deadly hum.

As she advanced, Unit Zero also ran forward, clutching a wicked looking progressive axe.

The Fourteenth Angel looked at both of them, and the empty sockets of its skull-like face lit up.

_"Ahh!"_ Rei cried out in pain as a blast of deadly white energy crashed into Unit Zero, and the blue giant was flung backwards, a vast portion of the armor on its front glowing orange with heat.

_"Die!"_ Mari roared as she finished closing the distance between Unit Five and the Angel.

Her lance slammed directly into the Angel's face, and bone crumbled around it as blood sprayed. The very tip of the weapon soon poked out from the back of the Angel's body.

However, the beast did not cry out in pain, did not collapse to the ground writhing in pain and agony. It didn't even seem to flinch.

Instead, what remained of its eye sockets lit up once again.

"You can't be serious!" Mari exclaimed, more enraged than dismayed. "You cheating _motherfu—_!"

White destruction erupted forth from the Angel again, and Unit Five's lance was vaporized in an instant, along with the entirety of the arm attached to it. Mari cried out in agony and clutched at her shoulder as the Evangelion's pain tore through her body.

The Angel didn't give her so much as a moment to lick her wounds, though. In a flash, its arms shot forward, wrapping themselves around Unit Five's torso and picking up the huge EVA like it was nothing more than a toy, raising it nearly above its own body.

"Mari!" Jessie cried.

The Fourth Child didn't respond, too focused on the battle. Mari quickly turned her head to observe her comrades-in-arms, the view her visor was providing her with automatically shifting with her movement.

Units One and Two were still in the process of disentangling themselves from one another, and Unit Zero lay unmoving on the ground, a huge patch of its armor still glowing with heat. Mari instantly knew that none of them would be able to help her before the Angel tore Unit Five to pieces, and with her primary melee weapon gone, there wasn't much she could do to free herself.

She knew exactly what she had to do.

Gripping her control yokes so tightly her knuckles turned white, Mari relayed a mental command to her EVA, and its four robotic legs sprang into action, clamping down on the Angel's body like a massive claw.

The Fourteenth Angel jerked in surprise, then immediately started trying to shake Unit Five loose. However, the Provisional Evangelion's grip on it was rock solid. Meeting with no success, the Angel then tightened its grip on Unit Five's body, but Mari barely noticed. With all the adrenaline pumping through her now, the pain from getting squeezed so tightly was all but lost in the agony of feeling like she had just lost an arm.

Of course, Mari couldn't see its eye sockets lighting up again from her position, but she had no doubt it was preparing for another energy attack.

She had no intention of giving it the chance to use it. Without even having to look at what she was doing, the Fourth Child moved aside a protective cover on a small console to her right, revealing a series of three switches. She immediately flipped two of them, then turned to look down at the Angel.

"Sayonara, big guy," she said, patting one of her control yokes affectionately with her free hand.

Then she flipped the last switch.

Instantly, the picture on her visor winked out as her entry plug was automatically ejected from Unit Five, a quartet of small rockets firing to carry her away from the EVA in a hurry.

Then, the Provisional Evangelion's core exploded with the force of a small N2 mine, instantly flooding the Geofront with blinding light and shaking the city above.

Mari's plug flew through the air for several seconds, before it started to lose momentum and a trio of parachutes automatically burst forth from one of the ends, slowing its descent to the ground.

The instant it touched down, the Fourth Child opened the hatch, emerging from the metal cylinder and quickly expelling the LCL in her lungs.

Her blue eyes widened when she saw that the Angel was still standing in the crater that Unit Five's explosion had created. The hole in its face remained and was bleeding freely. Portions of its body seemed to have melted. One of its long thin arms was completely gone.

But it was _still_ standing, and Mari quickly realized why. A shutter, almost like an eyelid, had snapped closed over the ruby sphere that was its core, opening again as the Fourth Child watched.

Bright blue eyes narrowed dangerously. "Oh, that's it," she in a quiet voice.

Jumping behind her plug to get as out of sight as possible, Mari quickly began to strip off her green plug suit until she was able to get at the little gold colored ring on her finger. She pressed the button on the side of it, and an instant later, the Flash had taken the place of the Fourth Child.

"Game on, asshole," the scarlet speedster said, kicking into speed mode.

Taking off, the Flash was at the foot of the Angel in an instant, running up its body in almost complete defiance of gravity. Taking a deep breath, the crimson comet reached out and _tweaked_ the Speed Force in a way she couldn't have described if her life depended on it, increasing the friction between the bottoms of her boots and the surface of the Angel by just a _little_ bit.

Then the Flash really poured on the speed, zipping all over the Angel's body in seconds, leaving boot prints on nearly every square inch of it, before finally returning to the ground and coming to a halt.

The whole thing had taken under three seconds. The Angel had never had a chance to react to her.

_WHOOMP!_

The Angel's body instantly burst into flame, turning the beast into a living, moving bonfire in the middle of the Geofront. Looking up at it, the Flash grinned savagely as the light from the flames reflected off the lenses in her cowl.

"That's for you, Unit Five," she said with a fierce satisfaction.

However, it didn't last long; the surface of the Angel wasn't very flammable, apparently. It only took seconds for the fires to burn out, and the Angel didn't seem to be hurting from the assault. After an explosion that could rival an N2 device, a quick roasting like that probably wasn't going to hurt it too much.

"Round two," the Flash said, zipping off toward it once more.

Once again running straight up its body, the scarlet speedster rushed toward the Angel's already damaged face. When she was right next to it, she clapped her gloved hands together as hard as she could.

_**BOOM!**_

A sonic boom ripped through the air, and the Flash again retreated, outrunning the fury that she herself had just unleashed. The Angel staggered backwards, the already broken remains of its face completely shattering, the fragments falling to the ground, revealing bright green flesh beneath.

Then it stabilized itself and turned toward the Flash. Its remaining arm streaked down toward her. She easily moved out of the way, leaving the Angel to destroy only the patch of ground where she'd been standing.

"You're one tough son of a bitch, aren't you?" the speedster growled, aware that she was running out of tricks that might work against something as huge and as tough as an Angel.

She turned to look at the remaining Evangelions. Unit Zero still hadn't budged from where it fell, but the other two EVAs had gotten back to their feet and looked ready to rumble again. The Flash supposed that she could leave the rest of the fight to them…

_Puppy-kun,_ she thought.

She didn't want to just ditch on him now; the Fourteenth Angel might've been looking pretty beaten up by this point, but it definitely wasn't out of the fight yet. She doubted that it would go down easily even after all the abuse it had taken.

Besides, she never was one to give up. She was all about go-big-or-go-home, and she still had one idea left.

It would probably hurt a hell of a lot, but she could take pain. She'd already experienced the sensation of having her arm blown off.

The scarlet speedster took off, but this time she didn't head for the Angel. Instead, she bolted straight up one of the tunnels which led up to the surface of the city. For this move, she was going to need momentum. Lots of momentum.

In a fraction of second, she had reached the coast of the Pacific Ocean, where she could _really_ open it up. Ignoring the fear of creating tidal waves that had checked her when she'd zipped back to Kansas to visit Denise, the Flash pressed herself to move at greater and greater speeds.

_Faster…_

The walls of water she was kicking up on either side of her grew in height to a good twenty feet.

_Faster._

Her thighs and calves started to burn, and still she pushed herself forward.

_Faster!_

The world blurred around her, as even her inhumanly quick senses and thinking speed proved insufficient to truly keep up. In the span of moments the Statue of Liberty, the pyramids of Giza, Saint Basil's Cathedral, and other landmarks from across the globe flashed past her vision. She blinked at one point and completely missed seeing her trek across the Atlantic Ocean.

_**Faster!**_

Pushing herself as close to her limit as she ever had before, the Flash found herself seeing what looked like a cluster of golden lightning crackling in the distance, a big mass of writhing energy. But there was no weather phenomenon on Earth that looked like _that_, and the Flash knew instinctively what it was.

It was the Speed Force, the very source of her powers. It beckoned to her with a siren song that enticed her and made her mouth go dry with fear at once. Looking at it, the scarlet speedster found herself powerfully tempted to just keep going more and more quickly until she reached it, despite her trepidation.

She might've, too, if she hadn't had a job to do.

Nearing the end of her circuit around the planet, the Flash entered the Tokyo-3 city limits, her footfalls sending big chunks of asphalt flying as she tore down the street. She rushed back down into the tunnel that led to the Geofront, ignoring the way her thighs seemed ready to explode.

Units One and Two hadn't engaged the Angel again yet; the crimson comet hadn't been gone for very long.

The Flash dashed up the side of the NERV pyramid, shattering windows marking the superwoman's passing. When she reached the top, she jumped as hard as she could. As she pushed off the very tippy-top of the structure, she told herself that Denise had said the Speed Force protected those who could manipulate it, and that she survived things that should've killed her every time she broke the sound barrier.

_"BANZAI!"_ she screamed as she flew through the air at a velocity that speeding bullets could only dream about.

A shockwave was sent rippling through the Geofront as the Flash collided with the Angel's core, sending it reeling. It never saw her coming and never had a chance to pull its cute little trick with its eyelid-like protective shutter.

However, the Flash didn't get to take in any of that; her world went white with pain the second she collided with the Angel, and she wasn't up to observing much of anything. She wasn't sure exactly how much time she spent in this blazing hell, but she eventually came to, finding herself on the ground in the Geofront.

_Only a few seconds,_ she decided at once.

She looked up toward the Angel, feeling a savage satisfaction as she saw that its red core was badly cracked, and it was wavering, looking almost drunk. Units One and Two were approaching it, ready to finish what she had started.

Satisfied that she had had a real impact on the damned thing, the Flash turned her head to take stock of herself, instantly wincing at the sight of limbs bent at the wrong angles and in the wrong places. Both of her legs and her left arm were broken; she had apparently favored her right side at the final instant, which was why she still had one good arm.

_Gotta act fast,_ she thought.

The scarlet speedster didn't just run fast, her body healed at superhuman rates as well. She had sounded sarcastic when she'd told that lady in the hazmat suit who'd found her that she'd broken some bones and then gotten better while she'd been waiting, but she had been telling the truth.

She had to set the broken bones.

Looking around, the Flash spotted a fairly thick wooden stick on the ground and picked it up, placing it between her teeth. A piece of leather or something would've been better, but it would have to do.

Reaching out with her good arm, she grabbed her broken one.

There was an audible _click_ as the broken bones popped back into place, and her eyes bulged as tears of agony welled up within them. A muffled scream burst forth from her, even though she clamped her jaw shut so hard she almost broke the stick.

She could actually _feel_ the bones knitting themselves back together again, and then the pain started to pass. In seconds, the break had healed completely, and she had two good arms again.

Of course, that still left her legs, which were rather important to her, since her whole shtick as a superwoman was running incredibly fast.

_This is gonna __**suck!**_ She thought, but she reached down and set the bones first in one leg and then the other anyway, knowing it would suck even more if they healed wrong and she had to break them again before she could walk properly.

Finally finished with that task, the Flash pulled herself to feet and turned her gaze back toward the battle just in time to see the final scene. As Unit One restrained the Angel's remaining arm, Unit Two plunged its progressive knife into the already damaged core, which quickly gave way beneath the assault. As the Flash watched, the broken remains of the core started to glow.

_That's my cue!_ The speedster thought.

Kicking back into speed mode, she rushed back over to her abandoned plug. Moving at hyper speed, she put her suit back into its hiding place and once more crammed her figure into her obnoxiously small plug suit. She managed to get back into her plug and close the hatch just as the Angel exploded, showering the interior of the Geofront with gore.

"Not a bad day's work," she remarked to herself as leaned back in her seat.

* * *

The next day, which was far less violent than the previous one, saw Gendo Ikari and Kozo Fuyutski at one of the terminals in Tokyo-2 International Airport as they waited for the psychologist who would be evaluating the Children.

"I'm rather surprised we still have to do this," Fuyutski remarked as he sat in one of the airport's uncomfortable seats and read a newspaper.

"And why do you say that?" Gendo asked.

Fuyutski shrugged. "Thought you might've used yesterday's events to convince everyone that there was no need for this whole thing," he said.

The statement was rather cryptic; they couldn't exactly talk freely in a crowded airport, after all, but the meaning obvious to Gendo.

"I might have, if we could claim all the credit," he responded with just a trace of a scowl on his face.

Though the Evangelions striking the killing blow against the most recent Angel had mollified some of NERV's detractors, the Flash's interference had created new problems, Fuyutski knew.

"Of course, it doesn't help that the people at the top tend to move slowly." Gendo added.

The former professor nodded in understanding. Without sufficient leverage or incentive, the UN would likely take so long to reverse their decision on the pilots' psyche evaluations that the things would be over and done with before they could actually do it, even if they could ultimately be persuaded to change their minds.

"Wouldn't be worth the effort in the end," Fuyutski said.

"Indeed," Gendo agreed.

The conversation petered out after that, and the two men went back to waiting in silence.

Of course, picking someone up at the airport wasn't something that the Commanders of NERV Central would usually be doing, but the man they had come to greet was something of a special case.

He had taught at the college that Gendo and Yui had attended, as part of a professor exchange program between Japan and the US, and if there was one person besides Kozo Fuyutski that Gendo Ikari could call a friend, it was him.

Fuyutski, on the other hand, had never liked him much, but he had felt obligated to accompany his former student anyway, since they had been colleagues once.

The plane finally touched down a few minutes later, and the passengers disembarked, many of them emerging into the terminal with red eyes and slightly disheveled appearances after the long transcontinental flight.

The man that Gendo and Fuyutski had come to pick up, however, looked well kempt and put together. He was an unremarkable looking man, fairly tall, with close cropped brown hair and brown eyes. He seemed to immediately pick out the Commanders and quickly approached them.

"Gendo, good to see you. How does my former student fare?" he asked, extending his hand.

"Well enough, Hunter," Gendo replied, shaking his hand. "You remember Fuyutski."

"Of course," Hunter said, offering his hand to the older man as well. "How are you, Kozo?"

"All right," Fuyutski said, trying and failing to keep himself from staring at Hunter as he shook the younger man's hand. "God, you haven't aged a day since I saw you last."

A small, strangely amused smile curled his lips. "Time has been very good to me," he remarked.

"We should go," Gendo said, all business now that the token pleasantries had been dispensed with, even with a man he could call friend. "I have a car waiting outside."

"Of course," Hunter agreed.

Though the psychologist wasn't perturbed by Gendo's brusqueness, Fuyutski still felt the need to try and make up for it.

"We very much appreciate you coming all this way for this," he told Hunter. "There aren't many psychologists out there who we feel we can trust to handle this matter with an appropriate level of tact and discretion."

By which he of course meant that it would be difficult to find another head shrink who'd be willing to rubber stamp the pilots as fit for duty regardless of their actual mental states, but there was no need to acknowledge that ugly little truth, especially in so public a place.

"Oh, I'm quite happy to help," Hunter assured him. "I hope you'll forgive any…implied morbidity on my part, but I expect it to be fascinating to work with individuals who have been through so much, and had such a great and unique responsibility foisted upon them at such a young age. And in any case, I've been wanting to take a trip to Tokyo-3 for some time now, anyway. I understand that that girl who's been calling herself the Flash lives there?"

"So it would seem," Fuyutski said. He had forgotten that the man had once lived in Keystone City and would thus probably have an interest in such things as a result. "Though to be honest, I doubt you'll get so much as a look at her. Aside from maybe a red blur, if you're lucky." He added with a small chuckle.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Kozo," Hunter said. "I tend to be…fortunate when it comes to that sort of thing."

Fuyutski frowned slightly, then shrugged it off. "Well, I suppose anything can happen, Dr. Zolomon."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Fans of the Flash will recognize the names Axel Walker and Hunter Zolomon. Said fans may also note that Barry didn't have much to do with either of them; it was Wally who knew them best. As I said before, I do plan to play fairly loosely with the Flash mythos here, which includes a good bit of mixing Barry's and Wally's personal histories.

In any case, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.


End file.
